Re: Documentation

[Andrew Archibald <aarchiba@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>]

; Hello.
; I am new to guile and somewhat confused.
; I have downloaded the latest version (1.2) and it lacks documentation
; (as explained because it is outdated).
; Can anyone tell me if there are some up-to-date docs ?
; I have looked at the tutorial at the guile doc page
; (http://totoro.red-bean.com/guile/docs/index.html)
; but it seems to be old and incomplete (which the page boldly admits).
; I am writing quite a large program for NLG and must incorporate a scheme
; interpreter in it.Guile seems a perfect choice, but with no docs I cannot
; use it.
; Help,Help,Help.
; Thanks.

I'm glad to hear you're putting a scheme interpreter in, and pleased
to hear you're considering guile.  If it doesn't work out, you might
consider SIOD (much mor limited, but smaller). 

Anyway, there are a couple of things to consider.  Firstly, guile-1.2
is not exactly the most recent version.  There is a set of developers'
snapshots which tend to be quite stable.  They have improved
significantly since guile-1.2.  Personally, I'd go with the snapshots
(available on red-bean), and so have a few other application
developers (eg, SCWM).  

In terms of docs, then, the manual is in quite good shape.  In fact
it's pretty good --- except for the missing sections.  But it contains
enough info to write an application that uses guile.  The tutorial is
also vary handy, and well-written.  What you probably want to do is
download the documentation snapshot
(ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/snapshots/guile-doc-snap.tar.gz),
which contains both reference manual and tutorial (and, I think,
R4RS).

Also, you may find it helpful to look at the source of certain
programs that use guile.  Which to look at depends on how you want to
use guile.  Some examples I'm aware of:

SCWM --- a standalone app (window manager) that uses guile to parse
config files and configure itself at runtime
guile-gtk --- provides the GTK as a library to other guile apps (you
might want to make your app look like a library, then write an
interface in scheme)
CHRLIB --- a matrix manipulation library for guile
the GIMP guile plugin --- scripting as a plugin

(BTW, if someone was interested in making a list of applications using
guile, that would be cool...)

; 					May the Force be with you.

Finally, the last place you may want to look is at the source of some
applications and of guile itself.  It's quite readable.  That is, "Use
the source, Luke".

Good luck,
Andrew
aarchiba@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca

;   Mark Kharitonov
;