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Chicken VS Guile

Compare Chicken VS Guile and see what are their differences

Chicken logo Chicken

A portable and efficient cross-platform Scheme implementation that compiles to C.

Guile logo Guile

Guile is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions, the official extension language for the GNU operating system.
  • Chicken Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18
  • Guile Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-01-01

Chicken features and specs

  • Simplicity
    Chicken Scheme is designed to be simple and easy to understand, making it accessible for new users and those familiar with Scheme.
  • R5RS Compatibility
    Chicken Scheme implements the R5RS standard, which ensures compatibility with other Scheme implementations and a wide range of Scheme programs.
  • Portability
    It is highly portable and runs on various platforms, making it a flexible choice for cross-platform development.
  • Extensive Libraries
    Chicken has a rich repository of user-contributed extensions (eggs), providing a vast set of libraries that extend its functionality.
  • Performance
    Chicken Scheme is designed for high performance, using an optimizing compiler that translates Scheme code into C, which is then compiled to machine code.

Possible disadvantages of Chicken

  • Limited Community
    Compared to more popular languages, Chicken Scheme has a smaller developer community, which may limit resources and support.
  • Egg Management Complexity
    Managing extensions (eggs) can be complex and sometimes introduces dependency issues that can be challenging to resolve.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic usage is straightforward, leveraging advanced features and understanding the compiler's workings can have a steep learning curve.
  • Documentation Variability
    The quality and comprehensiveness of documentation can vary, which might complicate the learning and development process for new users.
  • Niche Use Case
    Being a Scheme implementation, its niche use case might not align well with industries primarily relying on mainstream programming languages.

Guile features and specs

  • Extensibility
    Guile is designed to be embedded into applications, allowing developers to extend their software with scripting capabilities.
  • Scheme Language
    Guile is based on Scheme, a minimalist and flexible dialect of Lisp, which encourages learning and adoption due to its simplicity and power.
  • Integration with C
    Guile can be easily integrated with C programs, allowing the use of C libraries and functionalities within scripts.
  • Garbage Collection
    Guile provides automatic memory management through garbage collection, which can simplify memory management tasks for developers.
  • Portability
    Guile is designed to be portable across different platforms, making it a versatile choice for cross-platform development.
  • GNU Project
    As part of the GNU Project, Guile comes with the support of a large and active open-source community, which can be beneficial for development and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of Guile

  • Performance
    Compared to some other programming languages and scripting tools, Guile may not be as performant, especially in computation-heavy tasks.
  • Popularity
    Guile is less popular than some other scripting languages, which might lead to fewer resources, libraries, and community support.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite Scheme's minimalist design, developers unfamiliar with Lisp-like syntax might face a learning curve before becoming proficient with Guile.
  • Limited Educational Resources
    There are fewer tutorials, books, and courses focused specifically on Guile compared to other more widely-used scripting languages.
  • Integration Complexity
    Embedding Guile in an application may require additional effort and understanding of both the application and Guile's API.

Chicken videos

KFC Nashville Hot Extra Crispy Chicken Review

More videos:

  • Review - KFC's® Nashville Hot Chicken REVIEW!

Guile videos

Guile Review - with Tom Vasel

More videos:

  • Review - Guile Review - with Ryan Metzler
  • Review - Storm Collectibles GUILE Street Fighter Review BR / DiegoHDM

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Chicken and Guile)
Programming Language
50 50%
50% 50
OOP
50 50%
50% 50
Generic Programming Language
IDE
52 52%
48% 48

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Chicken seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 6 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Chicken mentions (6)

  • Scheming About Clojure
    Clojure seems good enough. It is not flawless and somewhat overloaded, but far, far ahead of Javascript, Python, Go, or Rust. Of course, I would always prefer CHICKEN Scheme for any passion project. But in an environment that already runs databases written in Java, the JVM has street cred, and a large community hints at sustainability, Clojure presents itself as well balanced in novelty and stability. All in all,... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Veryl: A Modern Hardware Description Language
    Of course it does! What else would you call something like chicken scheme [https://call-cc.org/], ats [https://ats-lang.sourceforge.net/], or ghc [https://www.haskell.org/ghc/]? They are not "scripts", they are full-blown compilers that happen to use C as their compilation target, and then leverage C compilers to generate code for a variety of architecures. it's a very sensible way to do things. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • The Rise & Fall of LISP - Too Good For The Rest Of the World
    CHICKEN Scheme \ CHICKEN is a compiler for the Scheme programming language. It produces portable and efficient C and supports the R5RS and R7RS (work in progress) standards, and many extensions. It runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, many Unix flavours... Source: about 2 years ago
  • One Minute: Chicken Scheme
    Website: http://call-cc.org Manual: http://wiki.call-cc.org/manual/index Wiki: http://wiki.call-cc.org/ Repository: https://code.call-cc.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=chicken-core.git;a=summary Standard Libraries: http://wiki.call-cc.org/man/5/Included%20modules Extension Repository: http://eggs.call-cc.org/5/. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Ante: A low-level functional language
    If you’re fine with tracing GC (which depends on the situation, of course), Standard ML is a perfectly boring language (that IIUC predated and inspired Caml) and MLton[1] is a very nice optimizing compiler for it. The language is awkward at times (in particular, the separate sublanguage of modules can be downright unwieldy), and the library has some of the usual blind spots such as nonexistent Unicode support... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
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Guile mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Guile yet. Tracking of Guile recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Chicken and Guile, you can also consider the following products

Racket Lang - Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) is a modern programming language in the Lisp/Scheme family, suitable...

MLton - MLton is an open-source, whole-program, optimizing Standard ML compiler

Clojure - Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming.

Hy - Hy is a wonderful dialect of Lisp that’s embedded in Python.

Gambit - Cross-platform chess game.

Poly/ML - The Poly/ML implementation of Standard ML – full multiprocessor support in the thread library and garbage collector, interactive debugger, fast compiler.