Cyclone is an experimental Scheme-to-C compiler that uses the Cheney on the MTA technique to implement full tail recursion, continuations, and generational garbage collection.

Building

Prerequisites:

• make
• gcc
• CHICKEN Scheme

CHICKEN is required to bootstrap the Scheme parts of Cyclone. A long-term goal is for the compiler to be self-hosting.

From the source directory, to build and run the compiler:

$ make
...
$ ./cyclone

To run the interpreter:

$ ./icyc

Installation

At the moment there is no support for a separate installation. Just run cyclone from the build directory.

Documentation

Run the cyclone command to compile a single Scheme file, and the repl command to start the interactive interpreter.

List of features.

TODO: "how it works section", or a link to a document that provides a brief overview. Much of this would also involve tying together references

References

• CONS Should Not CONS Its Arguments, Part II: Cheney on the M.T.A., by Henry Baker
• CHICKEN Scheme
• Chibi Scheme
• Compiling Scheme to C with closure conversion
• Lisp in Small Pieces, by Christian Queinnec
• R⁵RS Scheme Specification
• R⁷RS Scheme Specification
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman
• The 90 minute Scheme to C compiler, by Marc Feeley

License

Copyright (C) 2014 Justin Ethier

License terms TBD