If you want to handle a C-like language, you just need to make a parser; once you've got an AST, that is your "Lisp syntax", so you can do all of your fancy met

If you want to handle a C-like language, you just need to make a parser; once you've got an AST, that is your "Lisp syntax", so you can do all of your fancy metaprogramming, interpretation, compilation, etc. Using a parsing framework (e.g. parser combinators, parser generators, ometa, etc.) to parse a language which has a well-specified syntax (e.g. a BNF grammar) is pretty routine and mechanical; usually it just requires a one-to-one translation of the BNF form into the parser framework's syntax, then fiddling with ordering and precedence rules until your tests pass. Starting from scratch, I could knock out a C-like parser in maybe half an hour, e.g. using parsec or ometa. I'm sure Lisps have equivalents (I know Racket has built in support for defining new concrete synax)