guile/doc/ref/preface.texi

@iftex
@page
@unnumbered Preface

This reference manual documents Guile, GNU's Ubiquitous Intelligent
Language for Extensions.  It describes how to use Guile in many useful
and interesting ways.

This is edition 1.0 of the reference manual, and corresponds to Guile
version @value{VERSION}.
@end iftex


@iftex
@section The Guile License
@end iftex

@ifnottex
@node Guile License
@chapter The Guile License
@end ifnottex

The license of Guile consists of the GNU GPL plus a special statement
giving blanket permission to link with non-free software.  This is the
license statement as found in any individual file that it applies to:

@quotation
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this software; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307 USA

As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission
for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE.

The exception is that, if you link the GUILE library with other files to
produce an executable, this does not by itself cause the resulting
executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.  Your use of
that executable is in no way restricted on account of linking the GUILE
library code into it.

This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.

This exception applies only to the code released by the Free Software
Foundation under the name GUILE.  If you copy code from other Free
Software Foundation releases into a copy of GUILE, as the General Public
License permits, the exception does not apply to the code that you add
in this way.  To avoid misleading anyone as to the status of such
modified files, you must delete this exception notice from them.

If you write modifications of your own for GUILE, it is your choice
whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications.  If you
do not wish that, delete this exception notice.
@end quotation


@iftex
@section Layout of this Manual
@end iftex

@ifnottex
@node Manual Layout
@chapter Layout of this Manual
@end ifnottex

This manual is divided into five parts.

@strong{Part I: Introduction to Guile} provides an overview of what
Guile is and how you can use it.  A whirlwind tour shows how Guile can
be used interactively and as a script interpreter, how to link Guile
into your own applications, and how to write modules of interpreted and
compiled code for use with Guile.  All of the ideas introduced here are
documented in full by the later parts of the manual.

@strong{Part II: Guile Scheme} documents the core Scheme language and
features that Guile implements.  Although the basis for this is the
Scheme language described in R5RS, this part of the manual does not
assume any prior familiarity with R5RS in particular, or with Scheme in
general.  Basic Scheme concepts, standard aspects of the Scheme language
and Guile extensions on top of R5RS are all documented from scratch, and
organized by functionality rather than by the defining standards.

@strong{Part III: Guile Modules} describes some important modules,
distributed as part of the Guile distribution, that extend the
functionality provided by the Guile Scheme core, most notably:

@itemize @bullet
@item
the POSIX module, which provides Scheme level procedures for system and
network programming, conforming to the POSIX standard

@item
the SLIB module, which makes Aubrey Jaffer's portable Scheme library
available for use in Guile.
@end itemize

@strong{Part IV: Guile Scripting} documents the use of Guile as a script
interpreter, and illustrates this with a series of examples.

@strong{Part V: Extending Applications Using Guile} explains the options
available for using Guile as a application extension language.  At the
simpler end of the scale, an application might use Guile to define some
application-specific primitives in C and then load an application Scheme
file.  In this case most of the application code is written on the
Scheme level, and uses the application-specific primitives as an
extension to standard Scheme.  At the other end of the scale, an
application might be predominantly written in C --- with its main
control loop implemented in C --- but make occasional forays into Scheme
to, say, read configuration data or run user-defined customization code.
This part of the manual covers the complete range of application
extension options.

Finally, the appendices explain how to obtain the latest version of
Guile, how to install it, where to find modules to work with Guile, and
how to use the Guile debugger.


@iftex
@section Manual Conventions
@end iftex

@ifnottex
@node Manual Conventions
@chapter Conventions used in this Manual
@end ifnottex

We use some conventions in this manual.

@itemize @bullet

@item
For some procedures, notably type predicates, we use @dfn{iff} to
mean `if and only if'.  The construct is usually something like:
`Return @var{val} iff @var{condition}', where @var{val} is usually
`@code{#t}' or `non-@code{#f}'.  This typically means that @var{val}
is returned if @var{condition} holds, and that @samp{#f} is returned
otherwise.
@cindex iff

@item
In examples and procedure descriptions and all other places where the
evaluation of Scheme expression is shown, we use some notation for
denoting the output and evaluation results of expressions.

The symbol @code{@result{}} is used to tell which value is returned by
an evaluation:

@lisp
(+ 1 2)
@result{}
3
@end lisp

Some procedures produce some output besides returning a value.  This
is denoted by the symbol @code{@print{}}.

@lisp
(begin (display 1) (newline) 'hooray)
@print{} 1
@result{}
hooray
@end lisp

@c Add other conventions here.

@end itemize


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