Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. Scheme demonstrates that a very small number of rules for forming expressions, with no restrictions on how they are composed, are enough to form a practical and efficient programming language that is flexible enough to support most of the major programming paradigms in use today. This book contains the three parts comprising 'R6RS', the sixth revision of a series of reports describing the programming language Scheme. The book is divided into parts: a description of the language itself, a description of the standard libraries and non-normative appendices. Early chapters introduce Scheme and later chapters act as a reference manual. This is an important report for programmers that work with or want to learn about the Scheme language.

A thoroughly updated and expanded edition brings this popular introductory text and reference up to date with the current Scheme standard, the Revised6 Report on Scheme. Scheme is a general-purpose programming language, descended from Algol and Lisp, widely used in computing education and research and a broad range of industrial applications. This thoroughly updated edition of The Scheme Programming Language provides an introduction to Scheme and a definitive reference for standard Scheme, presented in a clear and concise manner. Written for professionals and students with some prior programming experience, it begins by leading the programmer gently through the basics of Scheme and continues with an introduction to some of the more advanced features of the language. The fourth edition has been substantially revised and expanded to bring the content up to date with the current Scheme standard, the Revised6 Report on Scheme. All parts of the book were updated and three new chapters were added, covering the language's new library, exception handling, and record-definition features. The book offers three chapters of introductory material with numerous examples, eight chapters of reference material, and one chapter of extended examples and additional exercises. All of the examples can be entered directly from the keyboard into an interactive Scheme session. Answers to many of the exercises, a complete formal syntax of Scheme, and a summary of forms and procedures are provided in appendixes. The Scheme Programming Language is the only book available that serves both as an introductory text in a variety of courses and as an essential reference for Scheme programmers.