Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Tiny C Compiler VS CLISP

Compare Tiny C Compiler VS CLISP and see what are their differences

Tiny C Compiler logo Tiny C Compiler

The Tiny C Compiler is an x86, x86-64 and ARM processor C compiler created by Fabrice Bellard.

CLISP logo CLISP

CLISP is a portable ANSI Common Lisp implementation and development environment by Bruno Haible.
  • Tiny C Compiler Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-11-06
  • CLISP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-19

Tiny C Compiler features and specs

  • Fast Compilation
    Tiny C Compiler (TCC) is known for its incredibly fast compilation speed, which makes it ideal for quick compilations and testing.
  • Small Size
    TCC has a very small footprint compared to other compilers, making it easy to include in applications and use in environments with limited resources.
  • C99 Support
    TCC provides support for the C99 standard, allowing the use of newer C language features.
  • Dynamic Code Generation
    TCC can compile and execute code dynamically, which can be useful for scripting or embedded contexts.
  • Simplified Licensing
    Under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), TCC can be more easily used in various projects, including proprietary ones, compared to compilers with more restrictive licenses.

Possible disadvantages of Tiny C Compiler

  • Limited Optimization
    TCC does not perform extensive optimization, which can result in less efficient executable code compared to compilers like GCC or Clang.
  • Incomplete C Standard Library
    TCC's standard C library implementation is not as complete as those of more established compilers, which might lead to compatibility issues.
  • Lack of Detailed Documentation
    Users may find the available documentation lacking in detail, which can hinder learning and debugging for complex projects.
  • Limited Platform Support
    TCC is primarily designed for smaller-scale applications and lacks some platform-specific and cross-compilation capabilities.
  • Fewer Community Resources
    Compared to major compilers like GCC or Clang, TCC has a smaller user community, which can mean fewer tutorials, forums, and third-party support tools.

CLISP features and specs

  • Cross-platform compatibility
    CLISP is available on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, which makes it versatile and accessible for developers across different operating systems.
  • GNU Licensing
    Being licensed under the GNU General Public License, CLISP is free to use, modify, and distribute, which is beneficial for open-source projects and encourages community contributions.
  • Interpreter environment
    CLISP offers an interactive interpreter environment, allowing for rapid testing and prototyping of code, which can speed up development and debugging processes.
  • ANSI Common Lisp compliance
    CLISP adheres to the ANSI Common Lisp standard, ensuring that programs written in CLISP are compliant with the standard and thus more portable and reliable.

Possible disadvantages of CLISP

  • Performance limitations
    Compared to other Lisp implementations like SBCL, CLISP might exhibit slower performance, which can be a drawback for computation-heavy applications.
  • Limited support for external libraries
    CLISP may have limited or less convenient access to certain external libraries or advanced features compared to other implementations, potentially making integration with other systems or technologies more challenging.
  • Outdated documentation
    Some of CLISP's documentation and resources might be outdated, which can pose challenges for new users trying to learn and resolve issues using the available materials.
  • Less active community
    Compared to more popular Lisp systems, CLISP might have a smaller or less active community, which can result in fewer community-contributed resources or slower developments and updates.

Tiny C Compiler videos

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CLISP videos

GNU CLISP - Brief introduction to install and setup of an artificially intelligent environment

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Tiny C Compiler and CLISP)
IDE
73 73%
27% 27
Text Editors
68 68%
32% 32
Programming Language
0 0%
100% 100
Email Marketing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Tiny C Compiler seems to be a lot more popular than CLISP. While we know about 37 links to Tiny C Compiler, we've tracked only 1 mention of CLISP. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Tiny C Compiler mentions (37)

  • What every compiler writer should know about programmers (Anton Ertl, 2015) [pdf]
    Some of those already exist, e.g. https://bellard.org/tcc/ However, they're not in widespread use. I would be curious to learn if there's any data/non-anecdotal information as to why. Is it momentum/inertia of GCC/LLVM/MSVC? Are alternative compilers incomplete and can't actually compile a lot of practical programs (belying the "relatively simple program") claim? Or is the performance differential due to... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Git: Introduce Rust and announce that it will become mandatorty
    In theory you should be able to use TCC to build git currently [1] [2]. If you have a lightweight system or you're building something experimental, it's a lot easier to get TCC up and running over GCC. I note that it supports arm, arm64, i386, riscv64 and x86_64. [1] https://bellard.org/tcc/ [2] https://github.com/TinyCC/tinycc. - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
  • Weird Lexical Syntax
    > I'm not sure who wants to be able to syntax highlight C at 35 MB per second, but I am now able to do so Fast, but tcc *compiles* C to binary code at 29 MB/s on a really old computer: https://bellard.org/tcc/#speed. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Pnut: A C to POSIX Shell Compiler you can Trust
    "Because Pnut can be distributed as a human-readable shell script (`pnut.sh`), it can serve as the basis for a reproducible build system. With a POSIX compliant shell, `pnut.sh` is sufficiently powerful to compile itself and, with some effort, [TCC](https://bellard.org/tcc/). Because TCC can be used to bootstrap GCC, this makes it possible to bootstrap a fully featured build toolchain from only human-readable... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Cwerg: C-like language that can be implemented in 10kLOC
    For what it's worth you can implement a C compiler in under 10kLOC. The chibi C compiler is only a few thousand lines [1]. There is also Cake [2] and the tiny C compiler [3] which are both relatively small. [1] https://github.com/rui314/chibicc [3] https://bellard.org/tcc/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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CLISP mentions (1)

  • What are the advantages for an imperative language to not be expression based?
    CLisp is an unfortunate contraction, also naming an implementation, but yes, the Common Lisp spec is that big. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Tiny C Compiler and CLISP, you can also consider the following products

GNU Compiler Collection - The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting...

Hy - Hy is a wonderful dialect of Lisp that’s embedded in Python.

LLVM - LLVM is a compiler infrastructure designed for compile-time, link-time, run-time, and...

MIT Scheme - Implementation of Scheme providing an interpreter, compiler, source-code debugger, integrated Emacs-like editor, and a large run-time library

clang - C, C++, Objective C and Objective C++ front-end for the LLVM compiler.

Armed Bear Common Lisp - Armed Bear Common Lisp (ABCL) is a full implementation of the Common Lisp language featuring both...