Lobsters Interview with matheusmoreira about Lone Lisp

Summary

Interview With Matheus MoreiraJul 2026 - Alex AlejandreMatheus Moreira (blog) built lone lisp directly on Linux system calls. In this interview, he shares his knowledge of C and the Linux Kernel.How did you get into computing originally? What was your path before discovering Lisp etc.?I’ve always liked computers, but what truly got me into programming was video games. When I was a kid, I used to play games from a series called Mega Man Battle Network, and I ended up getting inspired by those games. They’re ultimately responsible for my learning English; I used to join forums as a non-English speaker and try to socialize. It was rough at the start but I improved! The same goes for my first language, C++.How young were you when you started with C++?In Brazil there are “technical schools” which is what I attended. They’re normal highschool curriculum, with extra professional classes. I’m not sure if these are common abroad, if there is a term for it. There were other courses, also: chemistry, mechatronics… As for quality, it was basic, yet pretty good for a highschool level. It did make me start learning all by myself though; within 6 months, I’d already learned the entire curriculum. Eventually they hired me as a teacher’s assistant to help fellow students.So when I started highschool, around 13-14, I took the informatics course and started learning C++ with a very old IDE called Dev-C++, which still exists on source forge! I also browsed the tutorials on cplusplus.com. I tried making games but wasn’t very successful at it! It was pretty hard, especially because I had yet to learn all the physics I was supposed to be simulating :) What I did end up doing was learning a lot more languages. After some basic C++ proficiency, I learned quite a bit of Java, then Ruby, then Python… That eventually led me to Lisp and Scheme! I remember thinking scheme was extremely elegant when I first saw it. Ruby was my favorite language though. I wrote a few gems back then. I th...