http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacircular_interpreter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacircular_interpreter A meta-circular evaluator is a special case of a se

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacircular_interpreter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacircular_interpreter A meta-circular evaluator is a special case of a self-interpreter in which the existing facilities of the parent interpreter are directly applied to the source code being interpreted, without any need for additional implementation. Meta-circular evaluation is most common in the context of homoiconic languages. The idea goes back at least to the definition of Lisp 1.5 (1961) by John McCarthy[1]. He describes the evaluation rules of Lisp as a Lisp program.