An Introduction to Scheme and its Implementation

• Overview
  • Scheme: A Small But Powerful Language
  • Who Is this Book For?
  • Why Scheme?
  • Why Scheme Now?
  • What this Book Is Not
  • Structure of this Book
• Introduction
  • What is Scheme? (Hunk A)
  • Basic Scheme Features
    • Code Consists of Expressions
      • Parenthesized Prefix Expressions
      • Expressions Return Values, But May Have Side-Effects
      • Defining Variables and Procedures
      • Most Operators are Procedures
      • Definitions vs. Assignments
      • Special Forms
      • Control Structures are Expressions
    • The Boolean Values #t and #f
    • Some Other Control-Flow Constructs: cond, and, and or
      • cond
      • and and or
      • not is just a procedure
    • Comments (Hunk C)
    • A Note about Parentheses and Indenting
      • Let Your Editor Help You
      • Indenting Procedure Calls and Simple Control Constructs
      • Indenting cond
      • Indenting Procedure Definitions
    • All Values are Pointers to Objects
      • All Values are Pointers
      • Most Implementations Optimize Away Many Pointers
      • Objects on the Heap
    • Scheme Reclaims Memory Automatically
    • Objects Have Types, Variables Don't
      • Dynamic typing
    • The Empty List (Hunk E)
  • Pairs and Lists
    • cdr-linked lists
    • Lists and Quoting
    • Where the Empty List Got its Name
    • Some Handy Procedures that Operate on Lists
    • length
      • list
      • append
      • reverse
      • member
  • Recursion Over Lists and Other Data Structures
    • length
    • Copying Lists
    • append and reverse
      • append
      • reverse
  • Type and Equality Predicates (Hunk G)
    • Type Predicates
    • Equality Predicates
    • Choosing Equality Predicates (Hunk I)
  • Quoting and Literals
    • Simple Literals and Self-Evaluation
  • Local Variables and Lexical Scope
    • let
      • Indenting let Expressions
    • Lexical Scope
      • Binding Environments and Binding Contours
      • Block Structure Diagrams for lets
    • let*
  • Procedures (Hunk K)
    • Procedures are First Class
    • Higher-Order Procedures
    • Anonymous Procedures and lambda
    • lambda and Lexical Scope (Hunk M)
    • Local Definitions
    • Recursive Local Procedures and letrec
    • Multiple defines are like a letrec
    • Variable Arity: Procedures that Take a Variable Number of Arguments
    • apply
  • Variable Binding Again
    • Identifiers and Variables
    • Variables vs. Bindings vs. Values
  • Tail Recursion (Hunk O)
  • Macros
  • Continuations
  • Iteration Constructs
  • Discussion and Review
• Using Scheme (A Tutorial)
  • An Interactive Programming Environment (Hunk B)
    • Starting Scheme
    • Making mistakes and recovering from them
    • Returns and Parentheses
    • Interrupting Scheme
    • Exiting (Quitting) Scheme
    • Trying Out More Expressions
    • Booleans and Conditionals
    • Sequencing
    • Other Flow-of-control Structures
      • Using cond
      • Using and and or
    • Making Some Objects (Hunk D)
    • Lists (Hunk F)
  • Using Predicates (Hunk H)
    • Using Type Predicates
    • Using Equality Predicates
  • Local Variables, let, and Lexical Scope (Hunk J)
  • Using First-Class, Higher-Order, and Anonymous Procedures (Hunk L)
    • First-Class Procedures
    • Using and Writing Higher-Order Procedures
  • Interactively Changing a Program (Hunk N)
    • Replacing Procedure Values
    • Loading Code from a File
    • Loading and Running Whole Programs
  • Some Other Useful Data Types
    • Strings
    • Symbols
      • A Note on Identifiers
    • Lists Again
      • Heterogeneous Lists
      • Operations on Lists
  • Basic Programming Examples (Hunk P)
    • An Error Signaling Routine
    • map and for-each
      • map
      • for-each
    • member and assoc, and friends
      • member, memq, and memv
      • assoc, assq, and assv
  • Procedural Abstraction
    • Procedure Specialization
    • Procedure Composition
    • Currying
  • Discussion and Review
• Writing an Interpreter
  • Interpretation and Compilation
  • Implementing a Simple Interpreter
    • The Read-Eval-Print Loop
    • The Reader
      • Implementing read
      • Implementing the read procedure
      • Comments on the Reader
    • Recursive Evaluation
      • Comments on the Arithmetic Evaluator
    • A Note on Snarfing and Bootstrapping
      • Snarfing
      • Bootstrapping and Cross-compiling
    • Improving the Simple Interpreter
      • Implementing top-level variable bindings
      • Running the improved interpreter
  • Discussion and Review
• Environments and Procedures
  • Understanding let and lambda
    • let
    • lambda
      • Procedures are Closures
  • Lambda is cheap, and Closures are Fast
  • An Interpreter with let and lambda
    • Nested Environments and Recursive Evaluation
    • Integrated, Extensible Treatment of Special Forms
    • Interpreting let
    • Variable References and set!
    • Interpreting lambda and Procedure Calling
      • Mutual Recursion Between Eval and Eval-apply
  • Variants of let: letrec and let*
    • Understanding letrec
      • Using letrec and lambda to Implement Modules
    • let*
  • Iteration Constructs
    • Named let
  • Programming with Procedures and Environments
  • Exercises
• Recursion in Scheme
  • Subproblems and Reductions (non-tail and tail calls)
  • The Continuation Chain
  • Exploiting Tail Recursion
    • Passing Intermediate Values as Arguments
      • Summing a List
      • Implementing length tail-recursively
    • reduce
  • Iteration as Recursion
    • named let
    • do
• Quasiquotation and Macros
  • quasiquote
    • unquote-splicing
  • Defining New Special Forms
    • Macros vs. Procedures
  • Implementing More Scheme Special Forms
    • let
    • let*
    • cond
    • Discussion
  • Lisp-style Macros
    • Ultra-simple Lispish Macros
      • Better Lisp-style Macros
      • Problems With Lisp-Style Macros
      • Ugly Hacks Around Name Conflicts
  • Implementing Simple Macros and Quasiquote
    • Implementing Simple Macros
    • Implementing quasiquote and unquote
      • Translating backquotes to quasiquote
      • quasiquote
      • define-rewriter
      • define-macro
  • Procedural Macros vs. Template-filling Macros
  • Programming Examples Using Macros
• Records and Object Orientation
  • Records (Structures)
    • Using Procedural Abstraction to Implement Data Abstraction
    • Automating the Construction of Abstract Data Types with Macros
  • Simple Uses of OOP Objects
    • Late Binding
    • Class Definitions and Slot Specifications
    • Generic Procedures and Methods
  • Generic Procedures and Classes are First-Class
  • Implementing the Simple Object System
    • Implementing define-class
      • class <<class>>
    • Implementing define-generic
    • Implementing define-method
      • Installing Accessor Methods
      • Keyword options
    • Inheritance
    • Overriding and Refining Inherited Methods
    • Late Binding and Inheritance
    • Implementing an Object System with Inheritance
    • Interfaces and Inheritance
  • A More Advanced Object System and Implementation
    • Language Features
      • Purity
      • Encapsulation
      • Multiple Dispatching
      • Multiple Inheritance
      • Explictit Subtyping
      • Control Over Compilation
      • A Metaobject Protocol
    • Implementation Improvements
      • Factoring out Work at Compile Time
      • Supporting Runtime Changes
      • Faster Dynamic Dispatching
      • Compiling Slot Accessors And Methdos Inline
      • Exploiting Type Information
      • Advanced Compilation Techniques
  • Some Shortcomings of Standard Scheme for Object System Implementation
    • Inability to Define Disjoint Types
    • Lack of Type Objects for Predefined Types
    • Lack of Weak Tables and Extensible Closure Types.
    • Standard Macros are Limited
    • Unspecified Time of Macro Processing
    • Lack of Type Declarations
    • Lack of a Standard bound? procedure
• Other Useful Features
  • Special Forms
  • Input-Output Facilities
    • read and write
    • display
    • Ports
    • with-input-\dots{} Forms
  • Useful Types and Associated Procedures
    • Numeric Types
      • Floating-Point Numbers
      • Arbitrary-Precision Integers
      • Ratios
      • Coercions and Exactness
    • Vectors
    • Strings and Characters
• call-with-current-continuation
  • Implementing a Better Read-Eval-Print Loop
  • Implementing Catch and Throw
  • Implementing Backtracking
  • Implementing Coroutines
  • Implementing Cooperative Multitasking
  • Caveats about call-with-current-continuation
• A Simple Scheme Compiler
  • What is a Compiler?
    • What is an Interpreter?
    • OK, so what's a compiler?
  • What Does a Compiler Generate?
  • Basic Structure of the Compiler
  • Data Representations, Calling Convention, etc.
    • The Registers
    • The Evaluation Stack (or Eval Stack, for short)
    • The Continuation Chain
    • Environments
    • Closure Representation and Calling
  • Continuations
    • Applying a Procedure Doesn't Save the Caller's State
    • Continuation Saving
    • An Example
    • Generating Unique Labels
  • More on Representations of Environments
  • Compiling Code for Literals
  • Compiling Code for Top-Level Variable References
  • Precomputing Local Variable Lookups using Lexical Scope
    • Lexical Addressing and Compile-Time Environments
    • A Detailed Example
  • Preserving Tail-Recursiveness using Compile-Time Continuations
    • When Should We Save Continuations?
      • Compiling Returns
  • Compiling Top-Level Expressions
  • Compiling lambda Expressions Inside Procedures
  • Compiling Top-level Definitions
  • Interfacing to the Runtime System
    • Garbage Collection
      • Safe Points
      • GC at Any Time
    • Interrupts
  • Advanced Compiler and Runtime System Techniques
    • Inlining Small Procedures
    • Type Declarations and Type Analysis
    • Using More Hardware Registers
    • Closure Analysis
    • Register Allocating Loop Variables for Loops
    • Conventional Optimizations
    • Stack Caches
• Concept Index

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