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 About Snapshots ======================================================
   7
   8 Each night, we make the current Guile sources available via anonymous
   9 FTP.  Please keep in mind that these sources are strictly
  10 experimental; they will usually not be well-tested, and may not even
  11 compile on some systems.  They may contain interfaces which will
  12 change.  They will usually not be of sufficient quality for use by
  13 people not comfortable hacking the innards of Guile.  Caveat!
  14
  15 However, we're providing them anyway for several reasons.  We'd like
  16 to encourage people to get involved in developing Guile.  People
  17 willing to use the bleeding edge of development can get earlier access
  18 to new, experimental features.  Patches submitted relative to recent
  19 snapshots will be easier for us to evaluate and install, since the
  20 patch's original sources will be closer to what we're working with.
  21 And it allows us to start testing features earlier.
  22
  23 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are available via
  24 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz.
  25
  26 Via the web, that's:  ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz
  27 For getit, that's:    ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-core-snap.tar.gz
  28
  29
  30 Please send bug reports to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu.
  31
  32 About This Distribution ==============================================
  33
  34 Building and installing this distribution gives you:
  35 guile --- a stand-alone interpreter for Guile, usually installed in
  36         /usr/local/bin.  With no arguments, this is a simple
  37         interactive Scheme interpreter.  It can also be used as an
  38         interpreter for script files; see the NEWS file for details.
  39 libguile.a --- an object library containing the Guile interpreter,
  40         usually installed in /usr/local/lib.  You can use Guile in
  41         your own programs by linking against this.
  42 libqt.a --- an object library containing the QuickThreads primitives.
  43         If you enabled thread support when you configured Guile, you
  44         will need to link your code against this too.
  45 <libguile.h>, <libguile/*.h> --- header files for libguile.a, usually
  46         installed in /usr/local/include.
  47 ice-9, ice-9/*.scm --- run-time support for Guile: the module
  48         system, read-eval-print loop, some R4RS code and other
  49         infrastructure.  Usually installed in
  50         /usr/local/share/guile/<version>.
  51
  52
  53 Interesting files include:
  54 - INSTALL, which contains instructions on building and installing Guile.
  55 - NEWS, which describes user-visible changes since the last release of Guile.
  56 - COPYING, which describes the terms under which you may redistribute
  57   Guile, and explains that there is no warranty.
  58
  59 The Guile source tree is laid out as follows:
  60
  61 libguile:
  62         The Guile Scheme interpreter --- both the object library
  63         for you to link with your programs, and the executable you can run.
  64 ice-9:  Guile's module system, initialization code, and other infrastructure.
  65
  66 qt:     A cooperative threads package from Washington University,
  67         which Guile can use.  If you configure Guile with the
  68         --with-threads flag, you will need to link against the -lqt
  69         library, found in this directory.  Qt is under a separate
  70         copyright; see `qt/README' for more details.
  71
  72 (The present release doesn't include any documentation; the Guile
  73 manual is incomplete, and is currently being revised.)
  74
  75
  76 Hacking It Yourself ==================================================
  77
  78 As distributed, Guile needs only an ANSI C compiler and a Unix system
  79 to compile.  However, Guile's makefiles, configuration scripts, and a
  80 few other files are automatically generated, not written by hand.  If
  81 you want to make changes to the system (which we encourage!) you will
  82 find it helpful to have the tools we use to develop Guile.  They
  83 are the following:
  84
  85 Autoconf 2.12 --- a system for automatically generating `configure'
  86         scripts from templates which list the non-portable features a
  87         program would like to use.  Available in
  88         "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
  89
  90 Automake 1.1p --- a system for automatically generating Makefiles that
  91         conform to the (rather Byzantine) GNU coding standards.  The
  92         nice thing is that it takes care of hairy targets like 'make
  93         dist' and 'make distclean', and automatically generates
  94         Makefile dependencies.  Automake is available in
  95         "ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/tromey".
  96
  97         Before using automake, you may need to copy `threads.m4' and
  98         `guile.m4' from the top directory of the Guile core disty to
  99         `/usr/local/share/aclocal.
 100
 101 libtool 0.9h --- a system for managing the zillion hairy options needed
 102         on various systems to produce shared libraries.  Available in
 103         "ftp://alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu/gnu".
 104
 105 You are lost in a little maze of automatically generated files, all
 106 different.
 107 >
 108
 109
 110 Obtaining Guile ======================================================
 111
 112 The latest official Guile release is available via anonymous FTP from
 113 prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz.
 114
 115 Via the web, that's:  ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
 116 For getit, that's:    prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/guile-1.2.tar.gz
 117
 118 The mailing list `guile@cygnus.com' carries discussions, questions,
 119 and often answers, about Guile.  To subscribe, send mail to
 120 guile-request@cygnus.com.  Of course, please send bug reports (and
 121 fixes!) to bug-guile@prep.ai.mit.edu.
 122
 123
 124 Authors And Contributors =============================================
 125
 126 Many people have generously contributed to Guile.  However, any errors
 127 are the responsibility of the primary Guile maintainer, Jim Blandy.
 128
 129 Mikael Djurfeldt designed and implemented:
 130 * the source-level debugging support (although the debugger's user
 131   interface is not yet complete)
 132 * stack overflow detection,
 133 * the GDB patches to support debugging mixed Scheme/C code,
 134 * the original implementation of weak hash tables,
 135 * enhancements to the `threads' interface (based on Anthony Green's
 136   work), and
 137 * detection of circular references during printing.
 138
 139 Mark Galassi contributed the Guile high-level functions (gh_*), and
 140 wrote the guile-programmer and guile-user manuals.  (These are in the
 141 process of revision.)
 142
 143 Anthony Green wrote the original version of `threads', the interface
 144 between Guile and qt.
 145
 146 Gary Houston wrote much of the Unix system call support, including the
 147 socket support, and did a lot of work on the error handling code.
 148
 149 Tom Lord librarified SCM, yielding Guile.  He wrote Guile's operating
 150 system, Ice-9, and connected Guile to Tcl/Tk and the `rx' regular
 151 expression matcher.
 152
 153 Aubrey Jaffer seriously tuned performance and added features.  He
 154 designed many hairy but beautiful parts of the tag system and
 155 evaluator.
 156
 157 George Carrette wrote SIOD, a stand-alone scheme interpreter.
 158 Although most of this code as been rewritten or replaced over time,
 159 the garbage collector from SIOD is still an important part of Guile.