"Andrew C. Suttles" <andrew.sutt...@gmail.com> writes: > I know this is going to sound troll-ish, but I really don't mean for it to be. > I have been an Emacs user for quite some time and I've learned to hack my way > around ELSIP some. I'd like to make a structured attempt to learn LISP(ish) > programming and read SICP (etc) and so I searched the net and installed PLT. > I > recently re-stumbled across Guile and I'm wondering if I should give it > another > try. I like that I have the guile manual available in my Emacs info browser > and > I like that Guile can handle Elisp (though I'm not sure how I would ever use > it > that way). I always thought Guile's only useful domain was as an extension > language.
That is its nominal purpose, but there isn't really a clearcut line between use as an extension language and use for "standalone apps". Both involve a mixture of C and Scheme code. If we must try to draw a line, the question that occurs to me is "what language is the main loop written in?" But I don't think that's really meaningful. I can imagine a program with application-specific primitives written in C, and lots of higher-level logic in Scheme, and where moving the main loop from Scheme to C (or vice versa) would change only an insignificant fraction of the program. To try to be a bit more helpful: from a free software / GNU project point of view, I think the ideal is that application developers should try to write both - a complete and consistent library of application-domain primitives, which could be loaded and used by any instance of Guile - a main program that uses that library and presents their favoured UI. > 1) Is Guile used by anyone to create standalone apps, Yes, certainly. > or is it primarily an > language to be imbedded into other language apps? Covered above. > Given that it cannot be > compiled to native code, True, but that's on the (mental) roadmap. > I'd assume it's mainly used for light scripting and the > extension language stuff. I think that just begs the definition of "light". Someone may have a Guile app that runs for a week - which would be fine if they only need its output once a week. > 2) Is it possible to use Guile on MS Windows apart from cygwin? Yes, I believe so. The mingw32 cross-compiler successfully builds Guile 1.8.7 (build log at http://www.ossau.uklinux.net/guile/snapshots/). However I haven't recently tested that the built executable and DLLs work. We don't yet have a successful cross-compile of Guile's master branch - i.e. which will become Guile 2.0 - but that should happen in the next few months. > I've seen the GOOP and ECMAScript stuff and I read a quote to the affect that > Guile is more CL-like than other Scheme impelementations (whatever > that means), It means that Guile is trying to retain its dynamic nature - i.e. supporting interactive programming within a running Guile system - at the same time as improving compilation (currently to a virtual machine bytecode). Some Scheme implementations, and arguably R6RS, apparently focus on compilation at the expense of interactivity. > so I'm interested, but if I'd be better off sticking with something more > noob-oriented and library intensive (as a beginner) like PLT, I'd be happy to > continue my current trajectory. Why not give Guile a quick try? I'm sure it should be able to interpret SICP's code. Regards, Neil
