
The Development of Chez Scheme (2006) [pdf] - tosh
https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/hocs.pdf
======
sanxiyn
Note that Chez Scheme is now open source. This is a great gift to all compiler
hackers, and I sincerely thank Cisco for the release.

[https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme](https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme)

~~~
i_feel_great
Note also that Dybvig is still contributing to the project. Thanks Dybvig.

Edit: Hmmm. Also Matthew Flatt from Racket.

~~~
fiddlerwoaroof
Racket is being rewritten on top of Chez

~~~
throwaway7645
I always assumed this was a rumor, but I'm starting to get excited. It will
mean significant performance increases correct?

~~~
dmux
There was a previous HN discussion about this: "Chez Scheme as the Racket VM"
[0] which you may find insightful.

That discussion links to a Google Groups page where Matthew Flatt discusses
the background, status and plan going forward.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656397](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656397)

~~~
throwaway7645
Thanks for the link. I was going to ask myself how i missed this, then
realized I have one of the first comments :)

------
mark_l_watson
I built Chez Scheme when it was open sourced and have enjoyed experimenting
with it. I tentatively started a new book using both Chez and Chicken schemes
for the examples (but I am just starting a new job as tech lead of an AI team,
so I may not have time to finish it). I wrote a Scheme book years ago for
Springer Verlag that I was disappointed with, and I would like a chance to do
better.

It is really exciting that Racket is being restructured to use the Chez Scheme
compiler and runtime. I believe that there is a place for concise and elegant
languages like Scheme and Haskell.

~~~
eggy
Mark having bought your 1991 "Artificial Intelligence in the Era of Neural
Networks and Chaos Theory", which set me down a crazy, but worthwhile path, I
would buy your Chez/Chicken book in a heartbeat.

I was reading books on neural networks in the late 80s, but your book made me
get over some learning humps that allowed me to go back and revisit cloudy
areas.

Lisps and Scheme are great for AI still, and Racket moving to using Chez is
something I am really looking forward to.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks!!

------
kristianp
Apparently a fast compiler that produces fast programs, with Windows, Mac and
64-bit support as well. Although there are no binaries of the 9.4 release,
you'd have to build it yourself:

[https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme/releases](https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme/releases)

[https://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/release_notes/v9.4/releas...](https://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/release_notes/v9.4/release_notes.html)

~~~
lispm
I've recently compiled/installed it on a Macbook. That went without problems.

Definitely one of the great pieces of software in the Scheme world.

~~~
throwaway7645
Does it create native binaries or what?

~~~
rurban
Sure. Heavily optimized. Normally it compiles to native code, shared libs, on
the fly, but for shipping apps there are the usual tools. See
[http://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/csug9.4/use.html#./use:h8](http://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/csug9.4/use.html#./use:h8)

~~~
throwaway7645
If you get a native binary, shouldn't shipping an app be giving someone an
.exe (assuming Windows)or are you talking about a mobile phone app?

~~~
rurban
I was using the terms of the user guide. Building and Distributing
Applications. Which is first an scheme object file, which you can start with
`petite myapp.so`. So the exe is either chez or petit which loads the scheme
object files.

Unlike Allegro or Lispworks or clisp or Corman Lisp single exe's.

------
znpy
It would be nice to hear from people using chez scheme in real world, and know
what are they building.

------
dmux
>The compiler can also be directed to perform whole-program compilation, which
does full cross-library optimization and also reduces a program and the
libraries upon which it depends to a single binary.

Does anyone know if this involves "tree-shaking" to remove unused code; or is
it simply creating a binary with all dependencies as stated?

~~~
pkhuong
With any decent optimiser, "full cross-library optimization" is large superset
of what tree shaking does.

