Liss is an educational functional programming language with a Lisp-inspired syntax. It is a compiled language that runs on its own virtual machine.
The current VM implementation is based on Thorsten Ball's book "Writing a Compiler in Go" [link].
- Lisp-like Syntax: Uses S-expressions for a simple and consistent syntax.
- Functional: Emphasizes a functional programming style.
- Compiler and VM: Compiles to bytecode that runs on a custom virtual machine.
- REPL: Includes an interactive Read-Eval-Print Loop for experimentation.
- Regexp Support: Built-in support for regular expressions (Thompson's construction).
- Closures: Supports first-class functions and closures.
Here is an example of a LISS program that computes the factorial of a number:
(fn fact [n]
(cond (= n 0)
1
(* n (fact (- n 1)))
)
)
- "Writing a Compiler in Go" by Thorsten Ball, 2020 (ISBN: 978-3982016108)
- "Crafting Interpreters" by Robert Nystrom, 2021 (ISBN: 978-0990582939)
- "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Aho, Lam, Sethi and Ullman, 2013 (ISBN: 978-1292024349)
- "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson and Sussman, 1996 (ISBN: 978-0262510875)
- "Advanced Data Structures" by Peter Brass, 2019 (ISBN: 978-1108735513)
- "Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple And Fast" by Russ Cox, 2007 [link]
- "Regular Expression Matching: the Virtual Machine Approach" by Russ Cox, 2009 [link]
- "Regular Expression Matching in the Wild" by Russ Cox, 2010 [link]
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
Copyright (c) 2025 Oleg Sidorov