mes/README

                                                              -*- org -*-
Mes -- Maxwell Equations of Software

[[https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes][Mes]] aims to help create full source bootstrapping for [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix][GuixSD]] as part
of the [[http://bootstrappable.org][bootstrappable builds]] effort.

It currently consists of a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter
prototype written in C and a Nyacc-based C compiler written in Scheme.
This C prototype is being simplified to be transpiled by [[https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet][M2-Planet]].

The Scheme interpreter prototype (mes.c) has a Garbage Collector, a
library of loadable Scheme modules-- notably Dominique Boucher's [[https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm][LALR]],
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]],
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
REPL and simple C-compiler: MesCC.

Mes+MesCC can compile a [[https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc][modified TinyCC]] that is close to being
self-hosting.  A GNU Ccc-compiled tcc is [[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2017-05/msg00103.html][known]] to compile GCC.

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]] -- John
McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency and
Jeremiah Orians's stage0 ~300 byte self-hosting hex assembler.

[0] https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes
[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
[2] http://bootstrappable.org
[3] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
[4] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
[5] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
[6] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
[7] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/master/guile.html/PEG-Parsing.html
[8] https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
[9] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2017-05/msg00103.html
[10] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%25201.5%2520Programmers%2520Manual.pdf
[11] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0

Mes is free software, it is distributed under the terms of the GNU
General Public Licence version 3 or later.  See the file COPYING.

* Get it

   git clone https://gitlab.com/janneke/mes

* Build it (see INSTALL for full instructions)

   ./configure
   make all
   make check

* REPL it

   src/mes.gcc        # default (64 bit) gcc-compiled
   src/mes.mlibc-gcc  # 32 bit, gcc -nostdlib
   src/mes            # 32 bit, bootstrapped, mes.M1+MesCC-compiled

* MesCC compiler

   scripts/mescc -c scaffold/main.c