Hmmm… chicken hangs when trying to do anything useful. This is almost certainly down to my system configuration. I’m trying to use the free Microsoft command-line compiler but the fact that it can’t even compile a simple C++ hello world probably isn’t a good sign (it complains about a missing libcpmt.lib). I think the chicken eggs that I need only require a C compiler so I attempted to press on regardless. http.egg compiled and installed, but trying to run chicken-setup htmlprag hangs at the command:
c:\chicken-2.3\csc -feature compiling-extension -s -R syntax-case -O2 -d0 htmlprag.scm
*Sigh*
So, what are my options?
1. Move to PLT Scheme
I’ve heard nothing but good things about PLT Scheme, but one of the attractive things about chicken for me is the efficient compile from scheme to C to binary. It seems that you can do this with PLT, but it isn’t the recommended method.
2. Move to Linux
I know that at least the tool-chain is good on Linux 
Additionally, my Windows install seems to be on it’s last legs – it is really slow and probably infested with spyware. On the other hand, part of the reason of choosing chicken scheme is to be able to target Windows binaries easily.
3. Buy VC++ 6
I’m not too keen on buying an obsolete compiler, plus I’m a little cheap!
4. Re-build chicken scheme with MINGW / Visual C++ Express
This would fit in with my goals of being able to produce windows binaries while writing scheme. There isn’t too much documentation on the web about how to go about it though. I really don’t like fighting the tool-chain, but at least if it works it should be a one-off.
Originally posted: Thursday, July 06, 2006
