85 lines
3.5 KiB
Org Mode
85 lines
3.5 KiB
Org Mode
#+COMMENT: -*- org -*-
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#+TITLE: About GNU Mes
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#+SUBTITLE: Maxwell Equations of Software
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[[https://www.gnu.org/software/mes][GNU Mes]] is a Scheme interpreter and C compiler for bootstrapping the GNU
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System. Since version 0.22 it has again helped to halve the size of
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opaque, uninspectable binary seeds that are currently being used in the
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[[https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/guix-reduces-bootstrap-seed-by-50/][Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap]] of [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix][GNU Guix]]. The final goal is to help
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create a full source bootstrap as part of the [[http://bootstrappable.org][bootstrappable builds]]
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effort for UNIX-like operating systems.
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The Scheme interpreter is written in ~5,000 LOC of simple C, and the C
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compiler written in Scheme and these are mutual self-hosting. This
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mes.c is [[https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2][being simplified]] to be transpiled by [[https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet][M2-Planet]].
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Mes has a Garbage Collector, a library of loadable Scheme modules--
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notably Dominique Boucher's [[https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm][LALR]], Pre-R6RS [[https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html][portable syntax-case]] with
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R7RS ellipsis, Matt Wette's [[https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc][Nyacc]] --and test suite, just enough to
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support a REPL and a C99 compiler: mescc.
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Mes+MesCC can compile an only [[http://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc][lightly patched TinyCC]] that is
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self-hosting. Using this tcc and the Mes C library we now have a
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Reduced Binary Seed bootstrap for the gnutools triplet: glibc-2.2.5,
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binutils-2.20.1, gcc-2.95.3. This is enough to bootstrap Guix for
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i686-linux and x86_64-linux.
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Mes is inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: [[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf][LISP-1.5]] -- John
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McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency and
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Jeremiah Orians's [[https://github.com/oriansj/stage0][stage0]] ~500 byte self-hosting hex assembler.
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GNU Mes is free software, it is distributed under the terms of the GNU
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General Public Licence version 3 or later. See the file [[file:COPYING][COPYING]].
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* Get it
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#+BEGIN_SRC bash
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git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/mes.git
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#+END_SRC
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* Build it (see [[file:INSTALL][INSTALL]] for full instructions)
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#+BEGIN_SRC bash
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./configure
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make all
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make check
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#+END_SRC
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* REPL it
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#+BEGIN_SRC bash
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./pre-inst-env mes
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#+END_SRC
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* MesCC compiler
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#+BEGIN_SRC bash
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./pre-inst-env mescc -c scaffold/main.c
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#+END_SRC
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* Bugs
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Please send Mes bug reports to [[mailto:bug-mes@gnu.org][bug-mes@gnu.org]].
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* Links
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[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/mes
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[1] https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/guix-reduces-bootstrap-seed-by-50/
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[2] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
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[3] https://bootstrappable.org
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[4] https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2
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[5] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
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[6] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
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[7] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
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[8] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
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[9] https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
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[10] [[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf]]
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[11] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0
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* Legalese
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Copyright © 2016,2017,2018,2019 Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen <[[mailto:janneke@gnu.org][janneke@gnu.org]]>
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Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
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are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
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notice and this notice are preserved.
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