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This textbook contains the complete and heavily commented source code to an interpreter for a broad subset of R5RS Scheme. It covers many essential properties of the language, including:
-- automatic memory management
-- lexical closures
-- tail recursion (tail call elimination)
-- syntax transformation (macros)
-- arbitrary precision (bignum) arithmetics
The book is not exactly for beginners, because the better part of it consists of code. Although the code is very straight-forward, some familiarity with both C and Scheme is required to follow it.
The code appears in the same order as in the actual source file, so some forward references occur. Expect to read the code at least twice unless you jump to forward references while reading it. If you intend to do so: the index contains the page number of each function, procedure, constant, and variable declared anywhere in the program.
Because the text contains the whole code of the interpreter, there will be advanced parts and easy parts. Feel free to skip parts that you consider trivial. Parts that are complex can often be identified by the larger amount of annotations and figures that surround them.
You might even want to download a copy of the source code from the Scheme 9 from Empty Space section at http://t3x.org and study the actual code and the book at the same time. Source code that the book comments on has been archived. (also, R4RS interpreter 2009 update).
Print copies and newer editions available from https://t3x.org/s9book/index.html
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Keywords
- Computers
- Computers / Compilers
- Textbooks
Links
web: https://t3x.org/s9book/index.htmlEditions