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Quick Overview
Chez Scheme is a high-performance, industrial-strength Scheme implementation developed by R. Kent Dybvig. It is designed to be a robust, efficient, and portable Scheme system suitable for a wide range of applications, from scripting to systems programming to language implementation.
Pros
- High Performance: Chez Scheme is known for its exceptional performance, making it a great choice for applications that require speed and efficiency.
- Robust and Reliable: The project has a long history of development and is widely used, ensuring a stable and reliable Scheme implementation.
- Portable: Chez Scheme can be compiled and run on a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Extensive Documentation: The project provides comprehensive documentation, making it easier for developers to get started and understand the system.
Cons
- Steep Learning Curve: Scheme, as a Lisp dialect, can have a steep learning curve for developers who are more familiar with traditional imperative programming languages.
- Limited Community: Compared to some other programming languages, the Scheme community is relatively small, which may make it harder to find resources and support.
- Limited Ecosystem: The Chez Scheme ecosystem is not as large as some other programming language ecosystems, which may limit the availability of third-party libraries and tools.
- Commercial License: Chez Scheme is available under a commercial license, which may be a barrier for some developers or projects.
Code Examples
Here are a few short code examples demonstrating the use of Chez Scheme:
- Simple Hello World:
(display "Hello, World!")
(newline)
- Recursive Factorial Function:
(define (factorial n)
(if (= n 0)
1
(* n (factorial (- n 1)))))
(display (factorial 5))
(newline)
- List Manipulation:
(define my-list '(1 2 3 4 5))
(display (map (lambda (x) (* x 2)) my-list))
(newline)
- Defining a Simple Data Structure:
(define-record-type <person>
(make-person name age)
person?
(name get-name)
(age get-age))
(define john (make-person "John" 30))
(display (get-name john))
(newline)
(display (get-age john))
(newline)
Getting Started
To get started with Chez Scheme, you can follow these steps:
- Download the latest version of Chez Scheme from the official website.
- Install Chez Scheme on your system according to the instructions provided in the documentation.
- Create a new file with a
.scmextension and start writing your Scheme code. - To run your Scheme code, use the
schemecommand in your terminal, followed by the name of your file:
scheme my-file.scm
- Alternatively, you can use the
csicommand to start the Chez Scheme interactive REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop), where you can interactively test and execute your Scheme code.
For more detailed information on using Chez Scheme, including information on the language syntax, standard library, and advanced features, please refer to the official Chez Scheme documentation.
Competitor Comparisons
The Racket repository
Pros of Racket
- More extensive standard library and built-in features
- Supports multiple programming paradigms (functional, object-oriented, etc.)
- Active development with frequent updates and improvements
Cons of Racket
- Larger runtime and slower startup time
- More complex system with a steeper learning curve
- Less focused on performance optimization compared to Chez Scheme
Code Comparison
Racket:
#lang racket
(define (factorial n)
(if (zero? n)
1
(* n (factorial (sub1 n)))))
(displayln (factorial 5))
Chez Scheme:
(define (factorial n)
(if (zero? n)
1
(* n (factorial (- n 1)))))
(display (factorial 5))
(newline)
Summary
Racket is a more feature-rich and versatile language environment, offering a wide range of tools and libraries for various programming tasks. It's well-suited for educational purposes and rapid prototyping. Chez Scheme, on the other hand, is known for its performance and simplicity, making it a good choice for projects where speed and minimal overhead are crucial. The code examples demonstrate the similarity in basic syntax between the two, with Racket requiring an explicit language declaration.
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Chez Scheme is both a programming language and an implementation of that language, with supporting tools and documentation.
Supported platforms (bytecode interpreter may work for others):
- Windows: x86, x86_64, AArch64
- Mac OS: x86, x86_64, AArch64, PowerPC32
- Linux: x86, x86_64, ARMv6, AArch64, RV64G, LoongArch64, PowerPC32
- FreeBSD: x86, x86_64, ARMv6, AArch64, PowerPC32
- OpenBSD: x86, x86_64, ARMv6, AArch64, PowerPC32
- NetBSD: x86, x86_64, ARMv6, AArch64, PowerPC32
- Solaris: x86, x86_64
- GNU/Hurd: x86
- Android: ARMv7, AArch64
- iOS: AArch64
- WebAssembly via Emscripten (bytecode interpreter only)
As a superset of the language described in the Revised6 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme (R6RS), Chez Scheme supports all standard features of Scheme, including first-class procedures, proper treatment of tail calls, continuations, user-defined records, libraries, exceptions, and hygienic macro expansion.
Chez Scheme also includes extensive support for interfacing with C and other languages, support for multiple threads possibly running on multiple cores, non-blocking I/O, and many other features.
The Chez Scheme implementation consists of a compiler, run-time system, and programming environment. Although an interpreter is available, all code is compiled by default. Source code is compiled on-the-fly when loaded from a source file or entered via the shell. A source file can also be precompiled into a stored binary form and automatically recompiled when its dependencies change. Whether compiling on the fly or precompiling, the compiler produces optimized machine code, with some optimization across separately compiled library boundaries. The compiler can also be directed to perform whole-program compilation, which does full cross-library optimization and also reduces a program and the libraries upon which it depends to a single binary.
The run-time system interfaces with the operating system and supports, among other things, binary and textual (Unicode) I/O, automatic storage management (dynamic memory allocation and generational garbage collection), library management, and exception handling. By default, the compiler is included in the run-time system, allowing programs to be generated and compiled at run time, and storage for dynamically compiled code, just like any other dynamically allocated storage, is automatically reclaimed by the garbage collector.
The programming environment includes a source-level debugger, a mechanism for producing HTML displays of profile counts and program "hot spots" when profiling is enabled during compilation, tools for inspecting memory usage, and an interactive shell interface (the expression editor, or "expeditor" for short) that supports multi-line expression editing.
The R6RS core of the Chez Scheme language is described in The Scheme Programming Language, which also includes an introduction to Scheme and a set of example programs. Chez Scheme's additional language, run-time system, and programming environment features are described in the Chez Scheme User's Guide. The latter includes a shared index and a shared summary of forms, with links where appropriate to the former, so it is often the best starting point.
Get started with Chez Scheme by Building Chez Scheme.
For more information about the implementation and a guide to modifying Chez Scheme, see implementation notes.
For more information on Chez Scheme, see the Chez Scheme Project Page.
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