Note: ThinLisp is not actively developed. ECL is an active and supported Common Lisp to C compiler.
CLiCC is a similar system.
Authors: Jim Allard and Ben Hyde
Thinlisp is meant to allow deployment of Common Lisp applications as efficient C-compiled code, and thus includes notable restrictions as compared to full Common Lisp semantics. Most notably, Thinlisp does not have a garbage collector.
Thinlisp is licensed under an Apache 1.0 style license. The Apache 1.0 license is incompatible with the GPL.
The most up-to-date version of Thinlisp is available from https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/vsedach/Thinlisp-1.1.git. This version contains patches by Vladimir Sedach that fix build problems on SBCL and CLISP.
The original Thinlisp project page can still be found on SourceForge at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinlisp/
Tip: If the executables generated by ThinLisp are too large, try using strip. This shrinks the lecho demo binary from 555,893 to 119,020 bytes on a Red Hat Linux 6.2 system. If you compile it with make opt to use the C optimizer and then strip it, then the lecho binary size drops to 71,340.
On modern GCC, it may be necessary to add -DNO_ADDRESS_CONSTANTS to generated makefiles -- Dmitri Hrapof, 2020
On modern SBCL, it may be necessary to use CMUCL (due to constant "redefinition") -- Dmitri Hrapof, 2020