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.
+
+* In your web browser:
+
+ There is a (slow, bare-bones) version of Scheme available for online use at <http://tryscheme.sourceforge.net/>.
+
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 is called Racket,
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 stands to Scheme in something like the relation Firefox stands to HTML. It's one program (or platform) among others for working with the Scheme 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 -->
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.)
sudo port install mzscheme
+ <!-- mzscheme v4.1.5, from March 2009; latest mzscheme is 4.2.5, from April 2010 -->
+
If you want the GUI components, I think you'll need to use the
- "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above.
+ "Mac/without MacPorts" installation options above. Or you could try the Chicken Scheme implementation instead of Racket. This is more current.
+ To do that, type:
+
+ sudo port install chicken readline
+
+ <!-- chicken v4.8.0.2, from Feb 2013; latest available is 4.9.0.1, from Nov 2014 -->
- I recommend also typing:
+ Whether you use mzscheme or Chicken, I recommend also typing:
sudo port install rlwrap
- then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
+ then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`, for that matter), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme` (or whatever). 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.
sudo apt-get rlwrap
- then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme`. This gives
+ then if you ever use the command-line program `mzscheme` (or `racket`), you should start it by typing `rlwrap mzscheme` (or whatever). 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.