[comp.sys.next] Looking for Scheme for the NeXT

anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) (01/17/91)

Could someone point me to a version of Scheme for the NeXT?  Either Public
Domain or Commericial would be great.

I understand there is a language called "T" that is available for the NeXT
and is similar to Scheme.  Is it much different?  I would be using it for a
class, so a lot of differences might be inconvient.

I am using a NeXTstation with NeXTstep 2.0... does anyone know if whatever
is available will work?  I have found a number of programs from the ftp
sites will crash.

Thanks for any help!

__________________________________________________________________         
Jason W. Anthony         anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu      ////  /|         
Computer Engineering                                       /   / |         
Clarkson University, Potsdam N.Y.                       / /   /--|         
____________________________________________________   ///.  /   |.

kirchner@cs.umn.edu (Roger B. Kirchner) (01/17/91)

T can be put in scheme mode by executing (scheme-reset).  It works
fine with 2.0.  A next specific version of T 3.1 is available, but I
forget where.

MIT-Scheme 7.1 has just been released and NeXT specific executables
and lib files are on altforf.ai.mit.edu in archive/scheme-7.1/next.tar.Z.
It runs in either 1.0 or 2.0.  And it supports X11!  Now we need X11
for 2.0!

Roger Kirchner

mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) (01/17/91)

In article <1991Jan16.204221.23706@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu> anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) writes:
>Could someone point me to a version of Scheme for the NeXT?  Either Public
>Domain or Commericial would be great.
>
>I understand there is a language called "T" that is available for the NeXT
>and is similar to Scheme.  Is it much different?  I would be using it for a
>class, so a lot of differences might be inconvient.

There are several ways to go. You could use T, but T is not quite
Scheme. There is a good chance that you would have to expend
significant effort in modifying your code for compatibility. T can
be had from wheaties.ai.mit.edu.

You could use CScheme, also from MIT. CScheme is a portable implementation
of Scheme with about a million features. I don't know whether anyone
has a binary for the NeXT, or the diffs necessary to compile it, but
I don't imagine it would be too difficult. I think you can get
CScheme from wheaties as well.

You could use ELK. ELK (the Extension Language Kit) is another portable
Scheme interpreter, this one designed as an extension language for
other applications. It can be compiled as a stand-alone command-line
interpreter, however. I ran into an incompatability in the current
sources that halted my porting effort. Oliver Laumann, who wrote
ELK, reports that he is doing the port himself, so I decided to give
up for now and let the expert do it. ELK is available on uunet.uu.net.
Oliver Laumann can be reached at net@tub.cs.tu-berlin.de.

You could use Oaklisp, if you can find an ftp address for it, and if
it can be compiled on the NeXT. It is an object-oriented language
designed to be fully R^3 Scheme compatible. I don't know whether
anyone has it working on the NeXT, but it is written in C, so the
port should not be impossible. It from Carnegie Mellon, but I don't
know an ftp site for it.

You could use XScheme. Same caveats as ELK and Oaklisp. XScheme is
pretty clean code, pretty well documented, so a port shouldn't
be too hard. It includes some object-oriented stuff too. You
can get XScheme sources from bix, or, I think, from Compuserve.

You could buy Chez Scheme. This is areal product on some platforms,
noatbly on the VAX. It was designed by Kent Dybvig. I am afraid I
have lost my contact information for Kent Dybvig, more's the pity.
Chez Scheme has an excellent reputation. They have a version
running, but unsupported, on the NeXT. It doesn't support NeXTStep.
It costs about $1000. Hopefully, someone else on the net will
know the contact info for Kent Dybvig. I believe he's at the
University of Indiana.

You could wait for me to get Zen done. It's a Scheme programming
environment and authoring system with some HyperCard-like 
characteristics. It is also not even close to done, so don't hold your
breath. When I get it done, though, I plan to make it available
as shareware. I may substitute ELK for my evaluator if Oliver
Laumann gets his port done before I get my feature set fleshed
out. Incidentally, I plan to support NeXTStep extensively, and
I plan for Zen to be able to generate stand-alone apps (programs
that people can run without having a copy of the Zen authoring
environment).

isaacso@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Eric J. Isaacson) (01/17/91)

mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
>You could buy Chez Scheme. This is areal product on some platforms,
>noatbly on the VAX. It was designed by Kent Dybvig. I am afraid I
>have lost my contact information for Kent Dybvig, more's the pity.
>Chez Scheme has an excellent reputation. They have a version
>running, but unsupported, on the NeXT. It doesn't support NeXTStep.
>It costs about $1000. Hopefully, someone else on the net will
>know the contact info for Kent Dybvig. I believe he's at the
>University of Indiana.

Kent Dybvig can be reached at dyb@iuvax.  And it's Indiana University.
(Picky, picky, I know.)  Anyway, ChezScheme runs just fine in a
terminal window.

eji


--
Eric J. Isaacson (the other)      Internet: isaacso@ucs.indiana.edu
School of Music--Indiana Univ.   NeXT Mail: isaacso@bartok.music.indiana.edu
Bloomington, IN  47405          -- I am NOT the author of A86 and other    --
(812) 855-7832(o)/333-1827(h)   -- outstanding software...I wish I were... --

briscoe-duke@cs.yale.edu (Duke Briscoe) (01/26/91)

In article <48185@apple.Apple.COM>, mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
|> In article <1991Jan16.204221.23706@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu>
anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) writes:
|> >Could someone point me to a version of Scheme for the NeXT?  Either
Public
|> >Domain or Commericial would be great.
|> >
|> >I understand there is a language called "T" that is available for
the NeXT
|> >and is similar to Scheme.  Is it much different?  I would be using
it for a
|> >class, so a lot of differences might be inconvient.
|> 
|> There are several ways to go. You could use T, but T is not quite
|> Scheme. There is a good chance that you would have to expend
|> significant effort in modifying your code for compatibility. T can
|> be had from wheaties.ai.mit.edu.

In fact, as someone else pointed out, T has a Scheme compatibility
environment which can be entered by executing (scheme-reset).  I have
ported some large Scheme programs to the T Scheme environment without
any difficulty at all.  T has a good compiler also, plus you can
access some of the extra features of T from the Scheme environment.  I
highly recommend T.  Although I haven't used it on the Next, I'm
pretty sure that there is a version for it available by anonymous ftp
from wheaties.ai.mit.edu, as said above.

Duke