Scheme is a compact, tractable dialect of LISP that was developed in the mid-1970s by Gerry Sussman and Guy Steele at MIT, and has subsequently been widely used for everything from introductory computer science to computing planetary orbits. Beyond the merits of the language itself, two factors have contributed to its rapid rise. First, it was used as the vehicle for a revolutionary computer science textbook [1]. Second, a tradition of free or low-cost distribution of Scheme implementations has arisen: indeed, the original Scheme report [2] contained, among other things, a complete implementation (in LISP). Now Texas Instruments and MIT Press have continued this tradition by publishing a low-cost student edition of TI’s PC Scheme, together with this book.

This volume consists of two parts. The first is a user’s guide, which deals with most of the implementation-specific details, such as the debugging package, the EDWIN editor (an integrated full-screen EMACS-like editor, developed by Chris Hanson at MIT), and graphics enhancements. The second is a language reference manual, which describes each of the elements in the language in detail. This manual is considerably more detailed than the Scheme language definition [3], both in the discussion of individual operations and in the inclusion of many features not contained in the language definition, but it is not a textbook-quality tutorial.

The division into two parts, with separate indices, is sometimes confusing, especially since the pages are numbered alike (for example, two different pages are numbered 7-1, one in each part). The typography would have benefited from professional help but is nonetheless adequate. This volume was originally published in 1988 by the Scientific Press (South San Francisco); I hope that its distribution through MIT Press will allow it to reach the larger readership that it deserves.