README

   1                                                               -*- org -*-
   2 GNU Mes --- Maxwell Equations of Software
   3
   4 [[https://www.gnu.org/software/mes][GNU Mes]] aims to help create full
   5 source bootstrapping for GNU/Linux distributions such as
   6 [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix][GuixSD]] as part of the
   7 [[http://bootstrappable.org][bootstrappable builds]] effort.
   8
   9 It currently consists of a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter
  10 written in ~5,000 LOC of simple C and a Nyacc-based C compiler written
  11 in Scheme.  This mes.c is [[https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2][being simplified]] to be transpiled by
  12 [[https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet][M2-Planet]].
  13
  14 The Scheme interpreter prototype (mes.c) has a Garbage Collector, a
  15 library of loadable Scheme modules-- notably Dominique Boucher's [[https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm][LALR]],
  16 Pre-R6RS [[https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html][portable syntax-case]] with R7RS ellipsis, Matt Wette's [[https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc][Nyacc]],
  17 Guile's [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/master/guile.html/PEG-Parsing.html][PEG]] --and test suite just barely enough to support a simple
  18 REPL and simple C-compiler: MesCC.
  19
  20 Mes+MesCC can compile an only [[http://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc][lightly patched TinyCC]] that is
  21 self-hosting.  Using this tcc and the Mes C library we now have a
  22 reduced-binary-seed bootstrap for the gnutools triplet: glibc-2.2.5,
  23 binutils-2.20.1, gcc-4.1.0.
  24
  25 GNU Mes is inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: [[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%2525201.5%252520Programmers%252520Manual.pdf][LISP-1.5]] --
  26 John McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency
  27 and Jeremiah Orians's [[https://github.com/oriansj/stage0][stage0]] ~500 byte self-hosting hex assembler.
  28
  29 Mes is free software, it is distributed under the terms of the GNU
  30 General Public Licence version 3 or later.  See the file COPYING.
  31
  32 * Get it
  33
  34    git clone [[git://git.savannah.gnu.org][git://git.savannah.gnu.org/mes.git]]
  35
  36 * Build it (see INSTALL for full instructions)
  37
  38    ./configure
  39    make all
  40    make check
  41
  42 * REPL it
  43
  44    src/mes.gcc        # default (64 bit) gcc-compiled
  45    src/mes.mlibc-gcc  # 32 bit, gcc -nostdlib
  46    src/mes            # 32 bit, bootstrapped, mes.M1+MesCC-compiled
  47
  48 * MesCC compiler
  49
  50    scripts/mescc -c scaffold/main.c
  51
  52 * Bugs
  53
  54     Please send Mes bug reports to guix-devel@gnu.org.
  55
  56 [0] https://www.gnu.org/software/mes
  57 [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
  58 [2] http://bootstrappable.org
  59 [3] https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2
  60 [4] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
  61 [5] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
  62 [6] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
  63 [7] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
  64 [8] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/master/guile.html/PEG-Parsing.html
  65 [9] http://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
  66 [10] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%25201.5%2520Programmers%2520Manual.pdf
  67 [11] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0