Subject: Mes 0.5 released

I am pleased to announce the release of Mes 0.5, representing 250
commits over 4 months.  Mes is now self-hosting, or rather it features
a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter and C compiler: mes.c and
mescc; a Nyacc-based C compiler backend that also works separately
with Guile.

* About

    Mes aims to create full source bootstrapping for GuixSD: an
    entirely source-based bootstrap path.  The target is to [have
    GuixSD] boostrap from a minimal, easily inspectable binary --that
    should be readable as source-- into something close to R6RS
    Scheme.

    It currently consists of a mutual self-hosting [close to Guile-]
    Scheme interpreter prototype in C and a Nyacc-based C compiler in
    [Guile] Scheme.

    The Scheme interpreter prototype (mes.c) has a Garbage Collector,
    a library of loadable Scheme modules-- notably Dominique Boucher's
    LALR[1], Pre-R6RS portable syntax-case[2] with R7RS ellipsis, Matt
    Wette's Nyacc[3] Guile's PEG[4] --and test suite just barely
    enough to support a simple REPL (repl.mes) and simple C-compiler
    (mescc.mes) that can produce the second initial ELF binary from
    binary from mes.c, in only about 2h30'.

    Mes was inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: LISP-1.5[5]
    -- John McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's[6] source/binary packaging
    transparency and Jeremiah Orians's stage0[7] bootstrap project.

* Download

    git clone https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes

    wget https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=v0.5 -O mes-0.5.tar.gz

Mes runs from the source tree and can also be built, packaged and
installed in Guix[SD] by the usual

    guix package -f guix.scm

* Changes in 0.5 since 0.4
 ** Core
 *** Support compilation with Mescc.
 *** Support compilation with -nostdinc, -nostdlib using mlibc.
 *** Support call-with-current-continuation.
 *** Support exception handling, catch/throw.
 *** Give sensible error message when a macro is missing.
 ** Language
 *** Map now supports 4 lists.
 *** The reader supports negative hex numbers.
 *** 24 new functions
 access?, assoc-set! c????r, compose, list->char-set,
 open-input-string, read-string, string-delete, with-throw-handler.
 ** Mescc
 *** Mescc can be used separately as a Nyacc-based C compiler backend for Guile.
 *** Switch to Nyacc frontend, update Nyacc to 0.76.5.
 *** Mescc now has a test suite, scaffold/t.c.
 *** Mescc now includes a minimal C library: libc/mlib.c libc/mstart.c.
 *** Mescc can now compile mes.c.
 ** Noteworthy bug fixes
 *** The build system (configure, make) has been refactored.
 *** Support map-4.
 *** Evaluate arguments of OR only once.
 *** Fix assq-set!
 *** Fix ,expand in the REPL.

Greetings,
janneke

[1] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
[2] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
[3] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc/
[4] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/master/guile.html/PEG-Parsing.html
[5] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%25201.5%2520Programmers%2520Manual.pdf
[6] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/
[7] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0
