ISLISP

---

title: "ISLISP" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["lisp-programming-language-family", "lisp-(programming-language)", "programming-languages-with-an-iso-standard"] description: "Programming language in the Lisp family" topic_path: "technology/programming-languages" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISLISP" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Programming language in the Lisp family ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox programming language"]

Field	Value
name	ISLISP
logo
screenshot
paradigms	Multi-paradigm: functional, procedural, object-oriented, reflective, meta
family	Lisp
designers	Many
developers	Many
released
latest release date
latest preview date
programming language	C, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Lisp
platform	IA-32, x86-64
operating system	Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, AIX, Solaris, Android, QNX
file format
website
dialects	dayLISP, Easy-ISLisp, Iris, Isle ISLISP, ISLisproid, Kiss, OKI ISLISP, OpenLisp, PRIME-LISP
influenced by	Common Lisp, EuLisp, Le Lisp, Scheme
::

| name = ISLISP | logo = | logo caption = | screenshot = | screenshot caption = | paradigms = Multi-paradigm: functional, procedural, object-oriented, reflective, meta | family = Lisp | designers = Many | developers = Many | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | typing = | scope = | programming language = C, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Lisp | platform = IA-32, x86-64 | operating system = Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, AIX, Solaris, Android, QNX | license = | file ext = | file format = | website = | implementations = | dialects = dayLISP, Easy-ISLisp, Iris, Isle ISLISP, ISLisproid, Kiss, OKI ISLISP, OpenLisp, PRIME-LISP | influenced by = Common Lisp, EuLisp, Le Lisp, Scheme | influenced = ISLISP (also capitalized as ISLisp) is a programming language in the Lisp family standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) joint working group ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 16 (commonly termed simply SC22/WG16 or WG16). The primary output of this working group was an international standard, published by ISO. The standard was updated in 2007 and republished as ISO/IEC 13816:2007(E). Although official publication was through ISO, versions of the ISLISP language specification are available that are believed to be in the public domain.

The goal of this standards effort was to define a small, core language to help bridge the gap between differing dialects of Lisp. It attempted to accomplish this goal by studying primarily Common Lisp, EuLisp, Le Lisp, and Scheme and standardizing only those features shared between them.

Design goals

ISLISP has these design goals:

• Compatible with extant Lisp dialects where feasible
• Provide basic functionality
• Object-oriented
• Design for extensibility
• Prioritize industrial needs over academic needs
• Promote efficient implementations and applications

ISLISP has separate function and variable namespaces (hence it is a Lisp-2).

ISLISP's object system, ILOS, is mostly a subset of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS).

Major differences from Common Lisp

• There is a global lexical variable. (defglobal)
• Dynamic variable is explicit. (dynamic)
• Keywords are not self-evaluating.
• Destructuring is not supported in defmacro.

Implementations

ISLISP implementations have been made for many operating systems including Windows, most Unix and POSIX based, Android, MS-DOS, and OS/2.

Implementations for hardware computer architectures include: x86, x86-64, IA-64, SPARC, SPARC9, PowerPC, MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, ARM, AArch64

::data[format=table title="ISLISP implementations"]

Name	Creator	Complete ISLisp	Architecture	Written in	Operating system	License	Source code available
OpenLisp	Eligis		interpreter, compiles to C	C, Lisp	Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, AIX, Solaris, QNX
OKI ISLISP	Kyoto University and Oki Electric Industry Co.		Bytecode machine, compiles to bytecode	C	Windows
Prime-Lisp	Mikhail Semenov		Interpreter	C#	Windows	, Shareware, freely redistributable binaries
Iris	Masaya Taniguchi		Interpreter	Go	any	, Mozilla Public License 2.0
Iris web REPL	Masaya Taniguchi		Interpreter, compiles to JavaScript	Go, JavaScript	Browser	, Mozilla Public License 2.0
Kiss	Yuji Minejima	, not yet	Interpreter	C, Lisp	any	, GPL v3+
ISLisproid	Hiroshi Gomi		Interpreter	Java	Android
dayLISP	Matthew Denson		Interpreter	Java, Lisp	Any	, BSD
Easy-ISLisp	Kenichi Sasagawa		Interpreter, compiles to C	C, Lisp	Linux, MacOS, OpenBSD	, BSD
Isle ISLISP	KIM Taegyoon		Compiler	Common Lisp	OSes on which Common Lisp operates (including Linux and Windows)	, Unlicense
islisp-compat	Derek Newhall		Package on top of Common Lisp	Common Lisp	OSes on which Common Lisp operates (including Linux and Windows)	, CDDL
::

Two older implementations are no longer available:

• TISL, by Masato Izumi and Takayasu Ito (Tohoku University), was an interpreter and compiler.
• G-LISP, by Josef Jelinek, was a Java applet.

References

References

1. "WG16 Mail archive".
2. "ISO/IEC 13816:1997(E)".
3. "ISO/IEC 13816:2007(E)".
4. "Programming Language ISLISP: History".
5. "Programming Language ISLISP: Specification".
6. "ISLISP.info".
7. "Eligis".
8. "OKI ISLISP".
9. "Prime-Lisp".
10. "Iris".
11. "Masaya Taniguchi".
12. (4 September 2021). "Iris source code".
13. "Iris web REPL".
14. "Masaya Taniguchi".
15. "Iris source code".
16. (8 April 2017). "Kiss".
17. "Yuji Minejima".
18. (26 September 2021). "Kiss source code".
19. "ISLisproid".
20. "dayLISP".
21. "dayLISP source code".
22. "Easy-ISLisp".
23. (21 November 2021). "Easy-ISLisp source code".
24. (15 October 2023). "Isle ISLISP source code".
25. (20 November 2024). "islisp-compat".
26. "islisp-compat LICENSE.txt".
27. (28 October 1998). "TISL: An Experimental Interpreter and Compiler for ISLisp".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::