mes/doc/ANNOUNCE-0.5

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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