README

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