Installing the Arc language on Mac OS X is trivial, assuming you have the right version of MzScheme.
Install MzScheme 352 with MacPorts
Arc requires MzScheme, version 352. The install instructions warn: “Don’t use the latest version. There is said to be some bug/feature in it that breaks Arc.” The version of mzscheme in MacPorts is 371, so we have to tweak the portfile, and the only historical versions of mzscheme I can find portfiles for are 201 and 360. There seem to have been some major build changes between 352 and 360, so I frankensteined the portfile for version 201. You can find my version here. I’m running 10.4.11 on my dev machine, and I haven’t tested anything else.
Thanks go to bitshaker.com for the instructions on setting up a local port repo.
mkdir /Users/Shared/dports/lang/mzscheme
- Edit
/opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf
to look like this:# To enable your local ports repository, uncomment and customize the # following line to point at your local dports directory # Example: file:///Users/landonf/misc/macports/dports # # To get macports from the macports rsync server use: # rsync://rsync.macports.org/release/ports/ file:///Users/Shared/dports rsync://rsync.macports.org/release/ports/
- Download this portfile and copy it to
/Users/Shared/dports/lang/mzscheme/Portfile
- Update the ports index:
portindex /Users/Shared/dports
- When you run
port list mzscheme
, you should have an entry for mzscheme @352 - Install with:
sudo port install mzscheme @352
- Is mzscheme the right version? Does it run?
$ mzscheme Welcome to MzScheme version 352, Copyright (c) 2004-2006 PLT Scheme Inc. > (+ 1 2 ) 3 (exit) $
Download Arc and run it with mzscheme
Download http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc0.tar and untar it somewhere useful on your system. ~/src/
perhaps?
$ tar -xv arc0.tar $ cd arc0 $ mzscheme -m -f as.scm Use (quit) to quit, (tl) to return here after an interrupt. arc> (+ 1 2) 3 arc> (quit)