#+COMMENT: -*- org -*-
#+TITLE: About GNU Mes
#+SUBTITLE: Maxwell Equations of Software
[[https://www.gnu.org/software/mes][GNU Mes]] aims to help create full
source bootstrapping for GNU/Linux distributions such as
[[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix][GuixSD]] as part of the
[[http://bootstrappable.org][bootstrappable builds]] effort.
It consists of a mutual self-hosting Scheme interpreter written in
~5,000 LOC of simple C and a Nyacc-based C compiler written in Scheme.
This mes.c is [[https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2][being simplified]] to be transpiled by [[https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet][M2-Planet]].
The Scheme interpreter (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]] --and test
suite just barely enough to support a simple REPL and simple
C-compiler: MesCC.
Mes+MesCC can compile an only [[http://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc][lightly patched TinyCC]] that is
self-hosting. Using this tcc and the Mes C library we now have a
reduced-binary-seed bootstrap for the gnutools triplet: glibc-2.2.5,
binutils-2.20.1, gcc-4.7.4.
Mes is inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: [[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf][LISP-1.5]] -- John
McCarthy page 13, GNU Guix's source/binary packaging transparency and
Jeremiah Orians's [[https://github.com/oriansj/stage0][stage0]] ~500 byte self-hosting hex assembler.
GNU Mes is free software, it is distributed under the terms of the GNU
General Public Licence version 3 or later. See the file [[file:COPYING][COPYING]].
* Get it
#+BEGIN_SRC bash
git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/mes.git
#+END_SRC
* Build it (see [[file:INSTALL][INSTALL]] for full instructions)
#+BEGIN_SRC bash
./configure
make all
make check
#+END_SRC
* REPL it
#+BEGIN_SRC bash
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
#+END_SRC
* MesCC compiler
#+BEGIN_SRC bash
scripts/mescc -c scaffold/main.c
#+END_SRC
* Bugs
Please send Mes bug reports to [[mailto:bug-mes@gnu.org][bug-mes@gnu.org]].
* Links
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/mes
[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix
[2] http://bootstrappable.org
[3] https://github.com/oriansj/mes-m2
[4] https://github.com/oriansj/m2-planet
[5] https://github.com/schemeway/lalr-scm
[6] https://www.cs.indiana.edu/chezscheme/syntax-case/old-psyntax.html
[7] https://www.nongnu.org/nyacc
[8] http://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc
[9] [[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf]]
[10] https://github.com/oriansj/stage0
* Legalese
Copyright © 2016,2017,2018 Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen <[[mailto:janneke@gnu.org][janneke@gnu.org]]>
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
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