Re: [MIT-Scheme-users] MIT/GNU Scheme status

[Taylor Campbell]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Chris Hanson wrote:

> For some time now, all development on MIT/GNU Scheme has been done by
> me.  I am still making changes to the system on a regular basis, but I
> haven't had the time to put together a new release.

Out of curiosity, what, well, happened to the other developers --
Guillermo Rozas, Stephen Adams, &c. --?

> 
> [...]
> 
> (There is a separate effort by a couple of MIT alumni to port the
> compiler to recent-vintage Macs running OS X.  I don't know how far
> that has gone.)

Do you know whom to contact regarding that?  I heard vague second-hand
rumours about it a couple years ago from someone at Akamai, but all I
heard was that it existed.  (Since my main machine is a Mac, this is of
particular interest to me.)

> Second, I've split the empty list from #f, so the system is finally
> compliant with the ISO/IEEE Scheme standard.  It is mostly compliant
> with R5RS, but there are a few problematic areas.  I have implemented
> several SRFIs, but there are many more that would be useful have.
> Again, this is an area where help would be appreciated.

I've started working on a SRFI package for MIT Scheme, for those that
can be simply added on, and I have a pretty good idea of how others
that require some internal changes can be implemented.

> Third, the documentation has been falling further behind, as it
> usually does since it's not as much fun as coding.  Help in updating
> it would be useful.

I've already undertaken a Scheme48 documentation project; I could try
to take a stab at some of what's undocumented in MIT Scheme, too.

> To summarize, MIT/GNU Scheme is _not_ dead, but it's awfully sleepy.
> I will continue to support it for the foreseeable future, but due to
> lack of interest I don't want to make large infrastructural changes.
> I _am_ willing to support such efforts by others, however.  I will
> continue to make releases as time permits, but if you want to see more
> activity, you'll have to help out.  So drop me a line if you're
> interested.

I'm very interested in helping out -- in general, I'm interested in
seeing the two old & really industrial-strength Scheme systems, MIT
Scheme & T, brought up to date & into active development.  As you might
know, I & Brian Mastenbrook started what we're calling the T Revival
Project, and I'm interested in helping out with MIT Scheme, too.