#+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-2.16.0,
binutils-2.20.1, gcc-4.7.4.  This is enough to replace the GuixSD
boostrap for i686-linux.

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.