doc/ref/preface.texi

   1 @iftex
   2 @page
   3 @unnumbered Preface
   4
   5 This reference manual documents Guile, GNU's Ubiquitous Intelligent
   6 Language for Extensions.  It describes how to use Guile in many useful
   7 and interesting ways.
   8
   9 This is edition 1.0 of the reference manual, and corresponds to Guile
  10 version @value{VERSION}.
  11 @end iftex
  12
  13
  14 @iftex
  15 @section The Guile License
  16 @end iftex
  17
  18 @ifnottex
  19 @node Guile License
  20 @chapter The Guile License
  21 @end ifnottex
  22
  23 The license of Guile consists of the GNU GPL plus a special statement
  24 giving blanket permission to link with non-free software.  This is the
  25 license statement as found in any individual file that it applies to:
  26
  27 @quotation
  28 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  29 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
  30 Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
  31 later version.
  32
  33 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  34 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  35 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
  36 General Public License for more details.
  37
  38 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
  39 with this software; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
  40 Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
  41 02111-1307 USA
  42
  43 As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission
  44 for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE.
  45
  46 The exception is that, if you link the GUILE library with other files to
  47 produce an executable, this does not by itself cause the resulting
  48 executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.  Your use of
  49 that executable is in no way restricted on account of linking the GUILE
  50 library code into it.
  51
  52 This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
  53 executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
  54
  55 This exception applies only to the code released by the Free Software
  56 Foundation under the name GUILE.  If you copy code from other Free
  57 Software Foundation releases into a copy of GUILE, as the General Public
  58 License permits, the exception does not apply to the code that you add
  59 in this way.  To avoid misleading anyone as to the status of such
  60 modified files, you must delete this exception notice from them.
  61
  62 If you write modifications of your own for GUILE, it is your choice
  63 whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications.  If you
  64 do not wish that, delete this exception notice.
  65 @end quotation
  66
  67
  68 @iftex
  69 @section Layout of this Manual
  70 @end iftex
  71
  72 @ifnottex
  73 @node Manual Layout
  74 @chapter Layout of this Manual
  75 @end ifnottex
  76
  77 This manual is divided into five parts.
  78
  79 @strong{Part I: Introduction to Guile} provides an overview of what
  80 Guile is and how you can use it.  A whirlwind tour shows how Guile can
  81 be used interactively and as a script interpreter, how to link Guile
  82 into your own applications, and how to write modules of interpreted and
  83 compiled code for use with Guile.  All of the ideas introduced here are
  84 documented in full by the later parts of the manual.
  85
  86 @strong{Part II: Guile Scheme} documents the core Scheme language and
  87 features that Guile implements.  Although the basis for this is the
  88 Scheme language described in R5RS, this part of the manual does not
  89 assume any prior familiarity with R5RS in particular, or with Scheme in
  90 general.  Basic Scheme concepts, standard aspects of the Scheme language
  91 and Guile extensions on top of R5RS are all documented from scratch, and
  92 organized by functionality rather than by the defining standards.
  93
  94 @strong{Part III: Guile Modules} describes some important modules,
  95 distributed as part of the Guile distribution, that extend the
  96 functionality provided by the Guile Scheme core, most notably:
  97
  98 @itemize @bullet
  99 @item
 100 the POSIX module, which provides Scheme level procedures for system and
 101 network programming, conforming to the POSIX standard
 102
 103 @item
 104 the SLIB module, which makes Aubrey Jaffer's portable Scheme library
 105 available for use in Guile.
 106 @end itemize
 107
 108 @strong{Part IV: Guile Scripting} documents the use of Guile as a script
 109 interpreter, and illustrates this with a series of examples.
 110
 111 @strong{Part V: Extending Applications Using Guile} explains the options
 112 available for using Guile as a application extension language.  At the
 113 simpler end of the scale, an application might use Guile to define some
 114 application-specific primitives in C and then load an application Scheme
 115 file.  In this case most of the application code is written on the
 116 Scheme level, and uses the application-specific primitives as an
 117 extension to standard Scheme.  At the other end of the scale, an
 118 application might be predominantly written in C --- with its main
 119 control loop implemented in C --- but make occasional forays into Scheme
 120 to, say, read configuration data or run user-defined customization code.
 121 This part of the manual covers the complete range of application
 122 extension options.
 123
 124 Finally, the appendices explain how to obtain the latest version of
 125 Guile, how to install it, where to find modules to work with Guile, and
 126 how to use the Guile debugger.
 127
 128
 129 @iftex
 130 @section Manual Conventions
 131 @end iftex
 132
 133 @ifnottex
 134 @node Manual Conventions
 135 @chapter Conventions used in this Manual
 136 @end ifnottex
 137
 138 We use some conventions in this manual.
 139
 140 @itemize @bullet
 141
 142 @item
 143 For some procedures, notably type predicates, we use @dfn{iff} to
 144 mean `if and only if'.  The construct is usually something like:
 145 `Return @var{val} iff @var{condition}', where @var{val} is usually
 146 `@code{#t}' or `non-@code{#f}'.  This typically means that @var{val}
 147 is returned if @var{condition} holds, and that @samp{#f} is returned
 148 otherwise.
 149 @cindex iff
 150
 151 @item
 152 In examples and procedure descriptions and all other places where the
 153 evaluation of Scheme expression is shown, we use some notation for
 154 denoting the output and evaluation results of expressions.
 155
 156 The symbol @code{@result{}} is used to tell which value is returned by
 157 an evaluation:
 158
 159 @lisp
 160 (+ 1 2)
 161 @result{}
 162 3
 163 @end lisp
 164
 165 Some procedures produce some output besides returning a value.  This
 166 is denoted by the symbol @code{@print{}}.
 167
 168 @lisp
 169 (begin (display 1) (newline) 'hooray)
 170 @print{} 1
 171 @result{}
 172 hooray
 173 @end lisp
 174
 175 @c Add other conventions here.
 176
 177 @end itemize
 178
 179
 180 @c Local Variables:
 181 @c TeX-master: "guile.texi"
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