MzScheme vs MIT Scheme

[Noel Welsh <noelw@dai.ed.ac.uk>]

J. Reeves Hall writes:
> I've used MzScheme quite a bit, and I've been fairly pleased with it.
> However, as I learn more about the language, I am interested in what the
> other implementations have to offer. Could someone please offer a few
> comments on the pros and cons of MzScheme and MIT Scheme?

My impression of the two is as follows:

MIT Scheme:
+ It can compile to native code
+ It has more optimisation options, particularly for maths ops

- It doesn't appear to be actively maintained
- There is no MIT Scheme community (big disadvantage IMO)

PLT Scheme
+ Supports more modern concepts - units, objects, etc.
+ Active development
+ User community

- It doesn't appear that mzc performs many optimisations (but MrSpidey
opens the door to fast code)

My general impression is that PLT Scheme is the best general purpose
Scheme available. I would say it has the most active development
community of any Scheme, and has the most user contributions (possibly 
excepting Guile, but Guile isn't anywhere near as complete as PLT
Scheme). For specific needs the following may also be good
choices:

- Embedding in another program: Elk, Guile, SIOD
- Fast maths: Gambit->C, Stalin
- Systems programming: Bigloo
- Scripting: Scsh

The above is based on what I've heard from others. I've very little
experience with other Scheme implementations.

> One last issue... DrScheme seems to use an exhorbitant amount of memory,
> and makes my entire system (dual PII running Linux) run slowly. I have
> 128MB, so this shouldn't be happening. Any ideas?
> 

No idea I'm afraid. It runs nicely on my PII-400 w/ 64MB, so it should 
fly on your system. Maybe its the kernel you're running - it's a
development kernel, no?

cya,
Noel
-- 
Noel Welsh
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/~noelw/   noelw@dai.ed.ac.uk