Lightweight languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Different programming languages have different features. Some, in particular, are made to have a very small memory footprint, are easy to implement (important when porting a language), and/or have minimalist syntax and programmer features. These are commonly referred to as lightweight.

Compiled languages generally have small footprints. Thus this term is generally used to distinguish interpreted languages, which require runtime support.

[edit] Examples of lightweight languages

• C may be said to be lightweight, as its hardware assumptions are minimal (it is used to program microcontrollers, for example)
• Lua is embedded in many applications, like games, to provide runtime scripting capabilities
• Forth
• Io
• Squirrel