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Is there an easy-to-use compiler for Scheme?

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 8:11 am
by trefixxx
Hi everyone,

I am a novice going through the book SICP. When doing the exercises, I would like to easily switch between the MIT course materials, some relevant webpages and my code. Preferably, I would like to have a compiler such as Eclipse for Java, i.e. a program that highlights my code and at the same time compiles it (in a split screen). Is there anything comparable in regards of Lisp/Scheme? I am working on a Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).

I have downloaded GNU Emacs from http://emacsformacosx.com/ however this seems to require much knowledge to get into a decent working flow. I hope you can finally get me started, I have struggled now for some time with that... If there is simply no such compiler could anyone tell me how to compile a file using terminal?

Thank you so much for your help.

P.S.: As of now, I have not found a decent tutorial on how to get started with Scheme. Did I miss anything?

Re: Is there an easy-to-use compiler for Scheme?

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:11 pm
by nuntius
Yes, Racket has everything you are looking for, including support for SICP.

http://racket-lang.org/

Many other good Scheme implementations are able to run SICP code, but I think they require a bit more work to get started.

Here's a guide that uses MIT Scheme.

http://hackerretreat.com/why-how-start-sicp/

Re: Is there an easy-to-use compiler for Scheme?

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:07 pm
by sylwester
I agree DrRacket does indeed work as a good IDE/editor. It also has macroexpansion and a good debugger as well as function as a compiler.
Be sure to not use the standard language though as it is *not* Scheme. The latest Scheme report supported by the suit is R6RS.
If you need to test your software on a different implementations I recommend Ikarus. (Though both chicken and gambit has good compilers too)