In this blog post I will explain how to use the REPL and play around with it.

First you need to download the Acheron compiler from Sourceforge: Acheron Download. Additionally, you have to install Java (at least 1.6) because the compiler is completely written in Java.

After you unzipped the downloaded file to a proper location on your machine you have to direct your console to this location. If your on a *nix system you then simply have to type:

sh ./repl.sh

If your on a Windows system you have to type the following:

java -jar acheron.jar

In both cases the Acheron Lisp interpreter will start and wait for your input:

As expected you can use some built-in functions:

Or define your own functions:

Or a macro:

Note that Acheron Lisp currently only supports the &rest keyword in lambda lists (&optional will be supported in the future).

And you can do some nice things with closures:

All this code can be compiled to native JavaScript code and be executed in the browser. In the next entry I will explain how to compile and execute a simple Hello World program.

Responses[1]

Posted by Michael Bohn on February 21, 2011 10:19:00 PM CET #