1 ## Identifying your system ##
3 We'll assume you're using either Mac OS X, or Windows, or Linux.
4 If you're running **iOS**, you'll have a much harder time (perhaps impossible,
5 perhaps not) getting this software to run on your machine, and we can't give
8 If you're using **Mac OS X**, take note of what version of the Mac OS you're
9 running. (Under the Apple Menu, select "About this Mac".)
14 * Mountain Lion (10.8)
18 Furthermore, Mac users will be in one of two subgroups:
20 * You'll have Apple's Xcode and the independent MacPorts system
21 installed. (Probably you don't. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't have these.)
23 If you don't have these, but want to try this route, you can read about
24 the MacPorts system at <http://www.macports.org/>.
25 This automates the building of Unix-type software on your Mac; it
26 makes it a lot easier to check for dependencies, use more-recent
27 versions of things, and so on. (Though as it happens, MacPorts only has an older version of
28 our chosen implementation of Scheme.)
30 There are also other package management systems available for the Mac, notably Homebrew and Fink. I only know a little bit about them.
32 There are instructions about how to get Xcode on the [Installing MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/install.php) page.
33 Some versions of [Xcode](http://developer.apple.com/xcode.html) are available for free on the Mac App Store.
34 Other versions are available through Apple's Developer website (some of these are free, but do require you to
35 register with Apple as an "Apple Developer", which involves clicking to accept a legal agreement with Apple.)
36 I have an older version of this installed. If you download a recent version, email me and let me know how the
37 process works so I can tell others.
39 The latest version of Xcode to work with 10.5 / Leopard is 3.14; more recent versions (>= 3.2) require 10.6 / Snow Leopard.
40 3.2.6 is last version that can be downloaded for free by users of 10.6 / Snow Leopard. (But if they pay, they can use up to Xcode 4.2.)
41 Xcode 4.1 was free to all users of 10.7 / Lion. Is Xcode 4.6.x still available for free? Are Xcode 5.x and/or 6.x available for free?
44 * Or you won't have those installed. (**Most Mac users will be in this group.**)
45 Then you'll need pre-packaged (and usually pretty GUI) installers for
46 everything. These are great when they're available and kept up-to-date;
47 however sometimes those conditions aren't met.
51 If you're using **Windows**, you'll be in one of two subgroups:
53 * You'll have the Cygwin system <http://www.cygwin.com/> installed.
54 This puts a Unix-like layer on top of your Windows system,
55 and makes it easier for you to use the same software everybody
56 else will be using, without its needing as much special-for-Windows
57 treatment. However, many of you won't have this installed.
59 * You won't have Cygwin installed. (**Most Windows users will be in this group.**)
60 You might in theory have a different group of compilers installed
61 (MinGW, or Microsoft Visual C++) but we'll assume that the overwhelming
62 majority of users in this group don't have access to a compiler and
63 need pre-packaged installers for everything.
66 If you're using **Linux**, you could be using any one of numerous packaging
69 * We'll give examples using the packaging system shared by Debian and Ubuntu,
70 and we'll assume that those of you using different packaging systems will know
71 how to make the relevant substitutions.
74 **For everyone**, a general item to take note of is what "processor architecture" your machine is running. Three of the possibilities are:
76 * One of Intel's i386, i486, i586, i686 architectures. These are collectively known as "x86" or "IA-32" or sometimes just "32-bit".
77 * Intel or AMD's x86\_64 architecture. This is also called "x64" or "amd64" or "IA-64" or sometimes just "64-bit". (Note that these *aren't* "x86" machines, even though "x86\_64" starts with those letters.)
78 * ARM or some other architecture. These are generally lower-powered machines, like iPads. Some of the software we're proposing *might* in principle be capable of running on such machines, but installers don't seem to be available. We'll assume you have access to an x86 or x86\_64 machine.
80 On Linux or Mac OS X, you can open a terminal and type `uname -m`. If the
81 result is "x86\_64", then you've got x64/64-bit. If it's "i386" or something
82 like that, then you've got x86/32-bit. I think that Mac OS Xs from 10.7 / Lion
83 forward have all been x86\_64-only.
86 [here is a page that can help you figure this out](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/32-bit-and-64-bit-windows).
87 I think that most machines running Windows XP will be x86/32-bit (unless it's
88 a version of Windows with "64-bit" or "x64" in its title); machines running
89 Windows Vista or Windows 7 or Windows 8 could be running either x86/32-bit or
93 ## PLEASE REPORT PROBLEMS (AND SOLUTIONS!) ##
95 We haven't tested these instructions ourselves, and they're not explicit
96 step-by-step instructions in any case. If you encounter troubles, please email
97 to let us know so that we can amend the instructions to help others. If you
98 figure out how to fix the problem youself (and please do), please also write
99 with suggestions how we can change these instructions to make the process
100 easier and more straightforward for others.
105 **Scheme** is one of two or three major dialects of *Lisp*, which is a large family
106 of programming languages. The other dialects are called "Common Lisp" and "Clojure".
107 Scheme is the more clean and minimalist dialect, and is what's mostly used in
109 Scheme itself has umpteen different "implementations", which share most of
110 their fundamentals, but have slightly different extensions and interact with
111 the operating system differently. One major implementation is called Racket,
112 and that is what we recommend you use. (A few years back they were called PLT Scheme, but then
113 they changed their name to Racket.)
114 If you're already using or comfortable with
115 another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.
117 If for some reason you have problems with Racket, other implementations you could
119 [Chicken](http://www.call-cc.org),
120 [Gauche](http://practical-scheme.net/gauche),
121 or [Chibi](https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme). The later in that list you go, the more likely it
122 is that you'll have to compile the software yourself. (Thus Mac users will need Xcode.)
124 Racket stands to Scheme in something like the relation Firefox stands to HTML. It's one program among others for working with the language; and many of those programs (or web browsers) permit different extensions, have small variations, and so on.
126 Racket has several components. The two most visible components for us are a command-line interpreter named "racket" and a teaching-friendly editor/front-end named "DrRacket". You will probably be working primarily or wholly in the latter.
127 <!-- "racket" used to be mzscheme, "DrRacket" used to be DrScheme -->
129 The current version of Racket is 6.1.1 (released November 2014).
131 * In your web browser:
133 There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of Scheme available for online use at <http://tryscheme.sourceforge.net/>.
135 * **To install in Windows**
137 Go to <http://racket-lang.org/download/>. Download and install the "Windows x64" version. (Or the "Windows x86" verson if you have an older, 32-bit system.)
139 * **To install on Mac without MacPorts**
141 Go to <http://racket-lang.org/download/>. Download and install the option for your system, most likely "Macintosh
142 OS X (Intel 64-bit)".
144 * **To install on Mac with MacPorts**
146 Unfortunately, MacPorts doesn't have Racket itself available. It only has an older version from when they still called
147 themselves PLT Scheme. And even then, it only has the command-line program "mzscheme" (what's nowadays called "racket"); it
148 doesn't have the GUI program that corresponds to what's now called "DrRacket". You can install mzscheme by opening a Terminal
151 sudo port install mzscheme
153 If you want the GUI components, I think you'll need to use the
154 "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above.
156 I recommend also typing:
158 sudo port install rlwrap
160 then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
161 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
164 * **To install on Linux**
166 Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
169 sudo apt-get install racket
171 It's very likely that your packaging system has some version of
172 Racket available, so look for it. However, if you can't find it you
173 can also install a pre-packaged binary from the Racket website at <http://racket-lang.org/download/>.
174 Choose the option for your version of Linux (Ubuntu and Debian are available).
176 As above, I recommend you also type:
180 then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
181 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
187 **Caml** is one of two major dialects of *ML*, which is another large family of
188 programming languages. The other dialect is called "SML" and has several
189 implementations. But Caml has only one active implementation, OCaml or
190 Objective Caml, developed by the INRIA academic group in France.
191 Sometimes we may refer to Caml or ML
192 more generally; but you can assume that what we're talking about always works more
193 specifically in OCaml.
195 It's helpful if in addition to OCaml you also install the Findlib add-on.
196 This will make it easier to install additional add-ons further down the road.
197 However, if you're not able to get that working, don't worry about it much.
199 The current version of OCaml is 4.02.1 (released October 2014).
201 Another instruction page focuses on [OPAM](http://ocaml.org/docs/install.html), also [this](https://opam.ocaml.org).
203 * In your web browser:
205 There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of OCaml available for online use at <http://try.ocamlpro.com/>.
207 * **To install in Windows**
209 Go to <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>.
210 You can probably download and install the
211 "Self installer for the port based on the MinGW toolchain"
212 even if you don't know what MinGW or Cygwin are.
213 Some features of this require Cygwin, but it looks like
214 it should mostly work even for users without Cygwin.
215 At the time of this writing, only an installer for the previous
216 version of OCaml (3.11.0, from January 2010) is available.
218 To install the Findlib add-on, you must have the
219 Cygwin system installed. We assume few of you do,
220 so we're not going to try to explain how to do this.
221 If you want to figure it out yourself, go to the
222 Findlib website at <http://projects.camlcity.org/projects/findlib.html>.
224 * **To install on Mac without MacPorts**
226 To install OCaml 3.12 (just released this summer), go to
227 <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>
228 and download and install the "Binary distribution for Mac OS X"
230 To install the Findlib add-on, you'll need the Xcode development tools
231 to compile it yourself. Once you get that far, it's probably easiest
232 for you to install MacPorts and just install things using the MacPorts
233 instructions. (Use the MacPorts version of OCaml, instead of installing
234 the package from the caml.inria.fr website, as described above)
235 However, if you do have Xcode, and want to do without MacPorts, then
236 what you need to do is download Findlib from
237 <http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz>.
238 Unpack the download, open a Terminal and go into the folder you just
244 This will build an installer package which you should be able to
245 double-click and install.
247 * **To install on Mac with MacPorts**
249 You can install the previous version of OCaml (3.11.2,
250 from January 2010), together with the Findlib add-on, by opening a Terminal
253 sudo port install ocaml caml-findlib
255 As with Scheme, it's helpful to also have rlwrap installed, and to start OCaml as `rlwrap ocaml`. This gives
256 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
259 * [More details about installing OCaml on Macs, if needed](http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_mac_os_x)
261 * **To install on Linux**
263 Use your packaging system, for example, open a Terminal and
266 sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-findlib
268 That will install a version of OCaml and the Findlib add-on.
270 If for some reason you can't get OCaml through your
271 packaging system, you can go to
272 <http://caml.inria.fr/download.en.html>.
273 Pre-packaged binary installers are available for several Linux systems.
275 If you can't get findlib through your packaging system, you'll
276 need to download it from
277 <http://download.camlcity.org/download/findlib-1.2.6.tar.gz>.
278 and use gcc to compile it yourself. If you don't know how to
279 do that, you probably don't want to attempt this.
280 Here are the INSTALL notes:
281 <https://godirepo.camlcity.org/svn/lib-findlib/trunk/INSTALL>.
283 As with Scheme, it's helpful to also have rlwrap installed, and to start OCaml as `rlwrap ocaml`. This gives
284 you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
288 ## Getting Haskell ##
290 This last step is less crucial than the others, since we will be focusing
291 primarily on Scheme and OCaml. However we, and the readings you come across,
292 will sometimes mention Haskell, so it might be worth your installing this too,
293 so that you have it available to play around with.
295 Haskell is used a lot in the academic contexts we'll be working through. At one point, Scheme
296 dominated these discussions but now Haskell seems to do that.
298 Haskell's surface syntax differs from Caml, and there are various important things one can do in
299 each of Haskell and Caml that one can't (or can't as easily) do in the
300 other. But these languages also have *a lot* in common, and if you're
301 familiar with one of them, it's generally not hard to move between it and the
304 * In your web browser:
306 There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of Haskell available for online use at <http://tryhaskell.org/>.
308 sudo apk-get install haskell-platform
310 <https://github.com/pittsburgh-haskell/haskell-installation>
312 <https://www.haskell.org/platform>
314 Getting started: <https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps>