README

   1 This is a nightly snapshot of Guile, a portable, embeddable Scheme
   2 implementation written in C.  Guile provides a machine independent
   3 execution platform that can be linked in as a library when building
   4 extensible programs.
   5
   6 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu.
   7
   8
   9 Important Facts About Snapshots ======================================
  10
  11 Please keep in mind that these sources are strictly experimental; they
  12 will usually not be well-tested, and may not even compile on some
  13 systems.  They may contain interfaces which will change.  They will
  14 usually not be of sufficient quality for use by people not comfortable
  15 hacking the innards of Guile.  Caveat!
  16
  17 However, we're providing them anyway for several reasons.  We'd like
  18 to encourage people to get involved in developing Guile.  People
  19 willing to use the bleeding edge of development can get earlier access
  20 to new, experimental features.  Patches submitted relative to recent
  21 snapshots will be easier for us to evaluate and install, since the
  22 patch's original sources will be closer to what we're working with.
  23 And it allows us to start testing features earlier.
  24
  25 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are available via
  26 anonymous FTP from ftp.cyclic.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
  27
  28 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.cyclic.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
  29 For getit, that's:    ftp.cyclic.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
  30
  31
  32 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
  33 prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz.
  34
  35 Via the web, that's:  ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz
  36 For getit, that's:    prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.1.tar.gz
  37
  38 The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions,
  39 and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
  40 guile-request@cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug reports (and
  41 fixes!) to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu.
  42
  43
  44 About This Distribution ==============================================
  45
  46 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  47 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  48         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  49         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  50         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  51 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  52         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  53         your own programs by linking against this.
  54 libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives.
  55         If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you
  56         will need to link your code against this too.
  57 <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually
  58         installed in /usr/local/include.
  59
  60
  61 Interesting files include:
  62 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  63 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  64 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  65   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  66
  67 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  68
  69 libguile:
  70         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  71         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  72 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  73
  74 qt:     A cooperative threads package from Washington University,
  75         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  76         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  77         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  78         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  79
  80 (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile
  81 manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.)
  82
  83
  84 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  85
  86 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  87 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  88 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
  89 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
  90 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
  91 are the following:
  92
  93 Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
  94         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
  95         program would like to use.  Available in
  96         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  97
  98 Automake 1.1p --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
  99         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
 100         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
 101         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
 102         Makefile dependencies.  Available in
 103         "ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/tromey".
 104
 105 libtool 0.9d --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 106         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 107         "ftp://alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu/gnu".
 108
 109 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 110 different.
 111 >
 112
 113
 114 Authors And Contributors =============================================
 115
 116 Many people have generously contributed to Guile.  However, any errors
 117 are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy.
 118
 119 Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented:
 120 * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user
 121   interface is not yet complete)
 122 * stack overflow detection,
 123 * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code,
 124 * the original implementation of weak hash tables,
 125 * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's
 126   work), and
 127 * detection of circular references during printing.
 128
 129 Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and
 130 wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals.  (These are in the
 131 process of revision.)
 132
 133 Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface
 134 between Guile and qt.
 135
 136 Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the
 137 socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code.
 138
 139 Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile.  He wrote Guile's operating
 140 system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular
 141 expression matcher.
 142
 143 Aubrey Jaffer seriously tuned performance and added features.  He
 144 designed many hairy but beautiful parts of the tag system and
 145 evaluator.
 146
 147 George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter.
 148 Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time,
 149 the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile.