Hey :)
I've currently started to learn/use scheme for some experiments in machine learning and chose gambit for its close relation to c. I would like to share my first impression and misunderstandings with you and have some questions which maybe also help other newcomers.
1) I managed to compile my scheme library into a dynamic loadable unit that i use in some scripts for the gsi interpreter. Does anyone know how i can specify some kind of loadpath (e.g. via ENV, commandline flag) for the interpreter where (load "...") searches scheme modules? (Or any other common alternatives) Currently i'm always using relative paths through (string-append (path-directory (this-source-file)) "/" "module") based on the file location itself.
2) I've struggled in the beginning very much with the usage of gsc and gsi. My first step is often calling the --help flag of the command itself. Unfortanetely, i haven't found any useful option like "gsc --help" or "gsi --help" that provides a short summary about its common command flags. The man page and the -:h flag provides some information about runtime configuration. But it seems a little incomplete. (Especially for compiling scheme files to .o1). It would be a great help to extend this summary with the mentioned options from the documentation in "/usr/share/gambc" or "info gambit-c". (If i missed something interesting, just let me know)
3) For my own purpose i'm currently implementing a trivial testing library similar to rspec and would like to share this. The wiki mentioned two package systems (Black Hole and Snow). I like to ask if there exists some preferences using a specific system and which one do you suggest (or is there even one of them deprecated?)
4) Do you know a good scheme alternative for the printf command in c? I've currently only used (print ..) and (display ..) which worked, but i would also prefer some formated outputs for the future :)
5) I have currently no clue about gambit overall capabilities. But i guess it already belongs to the most matured scheme implementation due to its older age. I'm especially interested in its foreign interface to C and it would be interesting to know if its possible to bind bigger libraries like Glib/GTK/Cairo flawlessly. (Or does there exists some known limitations that could lead to obvious problems).
Hope you nevermind this trivial questions that helps me a little in gambits scheme landscape.
Chris