versions of things, and so on. (Though as it happens, MacPorts only has an older version of
our chosen implementation of Scheme.)
+ There are also other package management systems available for the Mac, notably Homebrew and Fink. I only know a little bit about them.
+
Xcode is available at
<http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/xcode.html>. Some
versions of this have been available for free, though you do have to
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?
-->
-
* Or you won't have those installed. (**Most Mac users will be in this group.**)
Then you'll need pre-packaged (and usually pretty GUI) installers for
everything. These are great when they're available and kept up-to-date;
however sometimes those conditions aren't met.
+
If you're using **Windows**, you'll be in one of two subgroups:
* You'll have the Cygwin system
treatment. However, many of you won't have this installed.
* You won't have Cygwin installed. You might in theory have
- a different group of compilers installed (Microsoft Visual C++) but
+ a different group of compilers installed (MinGW, or Microsoft Visual C++) but
we'll assume that the overwhelming majority of users in this group
don't have access to a compiler and need pre-packaged installers
for everything.
In the Linux example above, I could tell my machine is running x86 because the
result of the `uname` command said "i386" at the end. Another machine I have
says "x86\_64" at the end. On a Mac, you can also say `uname -m` in a Terminal
-session, and it will say something like "i386". I think that Mac OS's from Lion
+session, and it will say something like "i386". I think that Mac OS Xs from Lion
/ 10.7 forward have all been x86\_64-only. On Windows, I don't know how to
collect this information. But generally, machines running Windows XP will
probably be i386/32-bit (unless it's a version of Windows with "64-bit" or
## Getting Scheme ##
-**Scheme** is one of two major dialects of *Lisp*, which is a large family of
-programming languages. The other dialect is called "Common Lisp." Scheme is the
-more clean and minimalistic dialect, and is what's mostly used in academic
-circles.
-
+**Scheme** is one of two or three major dialects of *Lisp*, which is a large family
+of programming languages. The other dialects are called "Common Lisp" and "Clojure".
+Scheme is the more clean and minimalist dialect, and is what's mostly used in
+academic circles.
Scheme itself has umpteen different "implementations", which share most of
their fundamentals, but have slightly different extensions and interact with
-the operating system differently. One major implementation used to be called
-PLT Scheme, but then a few years ago changed their name to Racket.
-This is what we recommend you use. (If you're already using or comfortable with
-another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.)
+the operating system differently. One major implementation is called Racket,
+and that is what we recommend you use. (A few years back they were called PLT Scheme, but then
+they changed their name to Racket.)
+If you're already using or comfortable with
+another Scheme implementation, though, there's no compelling reason to switch.
+
+If for some reason you have problems with Racket, other implementations you could
+try are
+[Chicken](http://www.call-cc.org),
+[Gauche](http://practical-scheme.net/gauche),
+or [Chibi](https://code.google.com/p/chibi-scheme). The later in that list you go, the more likely it
+is that you'll have to compile the software yourself. (Thus Mac users will need Xcode.)
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.
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.
+<!-- "racket" used to be mzscheme, "DrRacket" used to be DrScheme -->
-<!-- racket used to be mzscheme, DrRacket used to be DrScheme -->
+The current version of Racket is 6.1.1 (released November 2014).
* In your web browser:
There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of Scheme available for online use at <http://tryscheme.sourceforge.net/>.
-
* **To install in Windows**
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.)
* **To install on Mac with MacPorts**
- You can install a command-line version of
- PLT Scheme (dating from early 2009) by opening a Terminal
- and typing:
+ Unfortunately, MacPorts doesn't have Racket itself available. It only has an older version from when they still called
+ themselves PLT Scheme. And even then, it only has the command-line program "mzscheme" (what's nowadays called "racket"); it
+ doesn't have the GUI program that corresponds to what's now called "DrRacket". You can install mzscheme by opening a Terminal
+ window and typing:
sudo port install mzscheme
programming languages. The other dialect is called "SML" and has several
implementations. But Caml has only one active implementation, OCaml or
Objective Caml, developed by the INRIA academic group in France.
-
-
-*Will add more information about this soon.*
-
-<!--
+Sometimes we may refer to Caml or ML
+more generally; but you can assume that what we're talking about always works more
+specifically in OCaml.
It's helpful if in addition to OCaml you also install the Findlib add-on.
This will make it easier to install additional add-ons further down the road.
However, if you're not able to get that working, don't worry about it much.
+The current version of OCaml is 4.02.1 (released October 2014).
+
+Another instruction page focuses on [OPAM](http://ocaml.org/docs/install.html), also [this](https://opam.ocaml.org).
+
+* In your web browser:
+
+ There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of OCaml available for online use at <http://try.ocamlpro.com/>.
* **To install in Windows**
As with Scheme, it's helpful to also have rlwrap installed, and to start OCaml as `rlwrap ocaml`. This gives
you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
keyboard arrows.
-
* [More details about installing OCaml on Macs, if needed](http://cocan.org/getting_started_with_ocaml_on_mac_os_x)
sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-findlib
- That will install a version of OCaml (probably 3.11.2, from January 2010)
- and the Findlib add-on.
+ That will install a version of OCaml and the Findlib add-on.
If for some reason you can't get OCaml through your
packaging system, you can go to
you a nice history of the commands you've already typed, which you can scroll up and down in with your
keyboard arrows.
--->
+
+## Getting Haskell ##
+
+This last step is less crucial than the others, since we will be focusing
+primarily on Scheme and OCaml. However we, and the readings you come across,
+will sometimes mention Haskell, so it might be worth your installing this too,
+so that you have it available to play around with.
+
+Haskell is used a lot in the academic contexts we'll be working through. At one point, Scheme
+dominated these discussions but now Haskell seems to do that.
+
+Haskell's surface syntax differs from Caml, and there are various important things one can do in
+each of Haskell and Caml that one can't (or can't as easily) do in the
+other. But these languages also have *a lot* in common, and if you're
+familiar with one of them, it's generally not hard to move between it and the
+other.
+
+* In your web browser:
+
+ There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of Haskell available for online use at <http://tryhaskell.org/>.
+
+sudo apk-get install haskell-platform
+
+<https://github.com/pittsburgh-haskell/haskell-installation>
+
+<https://www.haskell.org/platform>
+
+Getting started: <https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps>
+
+