Getting Started with Feersum Scheme

The Feersum Scheme compiler is available as a standalone .NET Tool for batch compilation and REPL support; and a .NET SDK to integrate with the main .NET toolchain.

.NET Tool - feersum-scheme

Install the tool globally with dotnet tool install -g Feersum. Once installed Feersum will be available on the command line as feersum-scheme. You can alais this to scheme if you are brave enough to use Feersum as your default scheme implementation.

Once you have the tool installed you can access a Scheme Read, Eval, Print, Loop (REPL) by running feersum-scheme. Type in scheme expressions to be evaluated and see their representation printed back to you:

Feersum Scheme Compiler - 0.2.6
§> "Hello, Schemer!"
}= "Hello, Schemer!"
§> (+ 1 9)  
}= 10
§>

note, current limitations prevent REPL expressions from accessing the results of previous evaluations. Each expression must be a complete Scheme form on a single line.

Check out https://github.com/iwillspeak/feersum/issues/35 to track progress on interactive scripting.

SDK Projects

Feersum scheme is also available as a .NET SDK to build console tools or class libraries. The Feersum .NET SDK is distributed as a NuGet package. The easiest way to get started is with the Feersum template pack:

$ dotnet new install Feersum.Templates::*

With this installed you can use use the following templates:

  • dotnet new scm-console - Create a .NET Console application project.
  • dotnet new scm-classlib - Create a .NET Class library project.
  • dotnet new scmlib - Create a Scheme library definition.

Check out the examples/ folder for more information.

The scm-console and scm-classib templates create .scmproj MSBuild projects which reference the shared Feersum.SDK package:

<Project Sdk="Feersum.Sdk/0.2.6">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Include="program.scm" />
  </ItemGroup>
  
</Project>

Things to note here:

  • The version of Feersum used in the SDK must be pinned in the Sdk=".." attribute. To upgrade the version of the compiler and toolchain in use bump this.
  • Scheme files must be added manually as <Compile Include=".."/> items. The order of these entries is important. A file can only rely on library declarations from an earlier file.