Pre-Scheme is a statically typed dialect of Scheme which offers the
efficiency and low-level machine access of C while retaining many of the
desirable features of Scheme. Developed by Richard Kelsey in the late
'80s based on the powerful "Transformational Compiler" from his
dissertation, it didn't see much use beyond the Scheme 48 virtual
machine. With a renewed community interest in systems-level Scheme
programming thanks to the growth of the Guix project, it's high time we
revisit this corner of history.
In this talk we will:
- review the history of Pre-Scheme
- review its compiler implementation and related work
- discuss the features & limitations of Pre-Scheme
- discuss porting efforts & future work
