Subject: Re: Why no talk about Guile?
From: rpw3@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Date: 1997/02/27
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <5f3iuu$igi@tokyo.engr.sgi.com>

Matthew R Wette <mwette@mr-ed.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
+---------------
| Right.  I'm sticking w/ SCM.  I just wish SCM had a "clean" C
| namespace.  My interest is in something that could be interfaced
| w/ TCL, is relatively lightweight and can be ported to VxWorks.
+---------------

SCM is fine, and I use it for some things too, but you might also want
to look at the Rice PLT stuff:

        http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/mzscheme/
        http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/mred/
        http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/drscheme/

MzScheme & SCM are roughly comparable, with the usual differences:

- MzScheme seems to be a little faster for CPU-bound stuff.
  SCM is a little faster on character I/O, and a little faster starting up.

- MzScheme's interface to C uses a Tcl-like "argc, **argv" call.
  SCM's interface to C uses fixed arity and fixed-plus-rest.

- MzScheme includes a Scheme "process" (thread) facility.

- MzScheme has a simple built-in object system that provides "C++"-like
  classes, and a C++ interface generator "xctocc", that was used to glue
  the "WxWindows" GUI (in C++) to MzScheme in the MrEd package.

  SCM can be used with X Windows with XSCM from MIT (or with TURTLSCM).
  MacSCM is a Macintosh applications building package (similar to XSCM).

MzScheme is the base for a bunch of other work at Rice, and is
pretty solid.

With a few load-time compatibilty hacks, my main Scheme application
runs on either one, same Scheme source.


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 7L-551		rpw3@sgi.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
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