J* - A lightweight embeddable scripting language

J* is a small, dynamic, embeddable scripting language designed to be as easy as possible to embed into another program. It arises from the need of having a modern scripting language with built-in support for object oriented programming whilst mantaning simplicity of use and a low memory footprint.

It can be viewed as a middle ground between Python, a more complete scripting language with lots of features and libraries, and Lua, a small and compact language that is simple to embed but doesn’t provide OOP functionalities out of the box.

J* tries to take the best of both worlds, implementing a fully featured class system while maintaining a small standard library and employing the use of a stack based API for communication among the language and host program, rendering embedding simple.

J* is:

• Small. The implementation spans only a handful of files and the memory footprint is low thanks to a minimal standard library that provides only essential functionalities
• Easy to use. The API is contained in a single header file and employs a stack based approach similar to the one of Lua, freeing the user from the burden of keeping track of memory owned by the language
• Fully object oriented. Every entity, from numbers to class instances, is an object in J*
• Modular. A fully fledged module system makes it easy to split your code across multiple files
• Easily extensible. The language can be easily extended by creating C functions callable from J* using the API, or by importing C extensions provided as dynamic libraries.

If you like what you hear, let’s get started!