The problem is that clean, compact, strictly algol-like languages tend to snowball into hairy, ad-hoc languages. Thing is, it wouldn't be that hard. How many c

The problem is that clean, compact, strictly algol-like languages tend to snowball into hairy, ad-hoc languages. Thing is, it wouldn't be that hard. How many compiler textbooks involve writing a minimal language like that? Tiger or Oberon, for instance. It's just that people don't stop at a tiny-but-sufficient, because they usually have a completely freestanding language in mind. Embedded languages need restraint to be useful. (Incidentally, I'm hoping to write a Prolog-ish language with embedding in mind this summer, but I already have a bunch of projects going.) Lua is one of few cases where the authors have placed such a high priority on embedded use that the language has been kept small, even when it meant (gasp!) leaving things out of the standard library. It's more like a sane Javascript than an algol-like language, though. (I love it, but it's not everyone's style.)