Cicada
A scripting language that integrates with C
Details
- External ID
- 46823498
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Cicada
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- Jan. 30, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 57
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.8247694334650857
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
I wrote a lightweight scripting language that runs together with C. Specifically, it's a C library, you run it through a C function call, and it can callback your own C functions. Compiles to ~250 kB. No dependencies beyond the C standard library.Key language features: * Uses aliases not pointers, so it's memory-safe * Arrays are N-dimensional and resizable * Runs scripts or its own 'shell' * Error trapping * Methods, inheritance, etc. * Customizable syntax
Enrichment
- Theme
- Claude integrations and coding agents
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- scripting language that integrates with c
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Writing a custom embedded scripting language with a zero-dependency C runtime, custom memory model (aliases), and bidirectional C FFI requires specialized compiler/runtime engineering.
What it would actually take: Building this requires writing a lexical analyzer, parser, abstract syntax tree evaluator or bytecode VM in standard C99, implementing an custom memory management scheme, and developing a clean C API/callback mechanism. It requires deep expertise in programming language theory, memory safety, and low-level C debugging. Vibe coding struggles with memory layout invariants and subtle VM edge cases in pure C.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Lua, AngelScript, Squirrel, Kotlin, Rust (iterators model)
Concerns raised: No multithreading support, Memory leaks with short-lived objects in loops, Runtime checks affecting performance, Potential use-after-free with C callbacks, Project health/maintenance status unclear for alternatives
Feature requests: Iterator methods (map, rev) on ranges like Rust, Proper iterator type with attachable methods, Multithreading with message passing/actor model
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 113 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #29 of 114 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 86 days after the earliest competitor.
- CJIT, a single-binary C compiler that can self host · hn · 2026-04-13 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- Built a tiny interpreter from scratch in C to understand how they work · hn · 2025-11-12 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- A C/C++ IDE written in C from scratch with zero dependencies · hn · 2026-03-22 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Ced · hn · 2026-05-07 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- C-Continuous-Calculators · github · 2026-09-11 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- CForge · ph · 2026-09-30 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- I built a Cargo-like build tool for C/C++ · hn · 2026-04-09 · 177 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- C3 Playground · hn · 2026-09-24 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.43
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
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