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 Snapshots ======================================================
   9
  10
  11 Each night, we make the current Guile sources available via anonymous
  12 FTP.  Please keep in mind that these sources are strictly
  13 experimental; they will usually not be well-tested, and may not even
  14 compile on some systems.  They may contain interfaces which will
  15 change.  They will usually not be of sufficient quality for use by
  16 people not comfortable hacking the innards of Guile.  Caveat!
  17
  18 However, we're providing them anyway for several reasons.  We'd like
  19 to encourage people to get involved in developing Guile.  People
  20 willing to use the bleeding edge of development can get earlier access
  21 to new, experimental features.  Patches submitted relative to recent
  22 snapshots will be easier for us to evaluate and install, since the
  23 patch's original sources will be closer to what we're working with.
  24 And it allows us to start testing features earlier.
  25
  26 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are available via
  27 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz.
  28
  29 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz
  30 For getit, that's:    ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz
  31
  32 The snapshot FTP site is mirrored at the following locations:
  33   Austria:              ftp://ftp.aec.at/pub/guile
  34   Japan:                ftp://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/lang/scheme/guile
  35
  36
  37 About This Distribution ==============================================
  38
  39 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  40 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  41         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  42         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  43         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  44 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  45         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  46         your own programs by linking against this.
  47 libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives.
  48         If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you
  49         will need to link your code against this too.
  50 <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually
  51         installed in /usr/local/include.
  52 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  53         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  54         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  55         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  56
  57 Interesting files include:
  58 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  59 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  60 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  61   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  62
  63 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  64
  65 libguile:
  66         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  67         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  68 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  69
  70 qt:     A cooperative threads package from Washington University,
  71         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  72         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  73         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  74         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  75
  76 (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile
  77 manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.)
  78
  79
  80 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  81
  82 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  83 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  84 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
  85 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
  86 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
  87 are the following:
  88
  89 Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
  90         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
  91         program would like to use.  Available in
  92         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  93
  94 Automake 1.3 --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
  95         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
  96         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
  97         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
  98         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
  99         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
 100
 101         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
 102         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
 103         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 104
 105 libtool 1.2 --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 106         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 107         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
 108
 109 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 110 different.
 111 >
 112
 113
 114 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 115
 116 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 117 prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz.
 118
 119 Via the web, that's:  ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
 120 For getit, that's:    prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
 121
 122 The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions,
 123 and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 124 guile-request@cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug reports (and
 125 fixes!) to bug-guile@gnu.org.
 126
 127
 128 Authors And Contributors =============================================
 129
 130 Many people have generously contributed to Guile.  However, any errors
 131 are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy.
 132
 133 Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented:
 134 * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user
 135   interface is not yet complete)
 136 * stack overflow detection,
 137 * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code,
 138 * the original implementation of weak hash tables,
 139 * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's
 140   work), and
 141 * detection of circular references during printing.
 142
 143 Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and
 144 wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals.  (These are in the
 145 process of revision.)
 146
 147 Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface
 148 between Guile and qt.
 149
 150 Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the
 151 socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code.
 152
 153 Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile.  He wrote Guile's operating
 154 system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular
 155 expression matcher.
 156
 157 Aubrey Jaffer is the author of SCM upon which Guile is based.  Guile
 158 started from SCM version 4e1 in November -94 and is still largely
 159 composed of the original SCM code.
 160
 161 George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter.
 162 Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time,
 163 the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile.