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@gnu.org.
   7
   8 About This Distribution ==============================================
   9
  10 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  11 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  12         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  13         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  14         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  15 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  16         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  17         your own programs by linking against this.
  18 libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives.
  19         If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you
  20         will need to link your code against this too.
  21 <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually
  22         installed in /usr/local/include.
  23 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  24         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  25         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  26         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  27
  28 Interesting files include:
  29 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  30 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  31 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  32   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  33
  34 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  35
  36 libguile:
  37         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  38         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  39 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  40
  41 qt:     A cooperative threads package from Washington University,
  42         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  43         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  44         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  45         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  46
  47 (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile
  48 manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.)
  49
  50
  51 Anonymous CVS Access and FTP snapshots ===============================
  52
  53 We make the developers' working Guile sources available via anonymous
  54 CVS, and by nightly snapshots, accessible via FTP.  See the files
  55 `ANON-CVS' and `SNAPSHOTS' for details.
  56
  57
  58 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  59
  60 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  61 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  62 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
  63 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
  64 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
  65 are the following:
  66
  67 Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
  68         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
  69         program would like to use.  Available in
  70         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  71
  72 Automake 1.3 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
  73         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
  74         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
  75         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
  76         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
  77         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  78
  79         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
  80         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
  81         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
  82
  83 libtool 1.2 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
  84         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
  85         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  86
  87 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
  88 different.
  89 >
  90
  91
  92 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
  93
  94 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
  95 prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz.
  96
  97 Via the web, that's:  ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
  98 For getit, that's:    prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
  99
 100 The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions,
 101 and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 102 guile-request@cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug reports (and
 103 fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.
 104
 105
 106 Authors And Contributors =============================================
 107
 108 Many people have generously contributed to Guile.  However, any errors
 109 are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy.
 110
 111 Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented:
 112 * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user
 113   interface is not yet complete)
 114 * stack overflow detection,
 115 * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code,
 116 * the original implementation of weak hash tables,
 117 * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's
 118   work), and
 119 * detection of circular references during printing.
 120
 121 Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and
 122 wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals.  (These are in the
 123 process of revision.)
 124
 125 Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface
 126 between Guile and qt.
 127
 128 Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the
 129 socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code.
 130
 131 Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile.  He wrote Guile's operating
 132 system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular
 133 expression matcher.
 134
 135 Aubrey Jaffer is the author of SCM upon which Guile is based.  Guile
 136 started from SCM version 4e1 in November -94 and is still largely
 137 composed of the original SCM code.
 138
 139 George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter.
 140 Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time,
 141 the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile.