IronScheme 1.0 Beta 2 Released

By Michael Foord -
There are three Microsoft developed languages that use the Dynamic Language Runtime: IronRuby, IronPython and a closed source language that only runs on Silverlight - Managed JScript.

IronScheme is a 'community-developed' language that also runs on .NET through the DLR. IronScheme includes a Visual Studio plugin (for VS 2008 SP1) and IronScheme 1.0 Beta 2 has just been released.

IronScheme aims to be a R6RS conforming Scheme implementation.
New in the 1.0 Beta 2 release:
  • Added a new LINQ library (ironscheme linq2) which implements all methods found under System.Linq.Enumerable. The new version also uses deferred execution
  • Added a few more libraries
  • Added (ironscheme unsafe) library
  • Many bug fixes
  • Added P/Invoke functionality, and a small FFI layer
  • Many compiler optimizations added (TCE, lambda body hoisting, assignment elimination), more coming for beta 3!
  • Rewrote fixnums and flonums in Scheme. Uses unsafe features.
  • Memory optimizations (previous versions had many objects that could not be GC'd), much less GC's needed now
A codeproject article takes you through installing and playing with the new release - including calling .NET libraries from Scheme.
Personally I'd like to play around with calling into Python from Scheme and vice-versa...

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