Keep in mind that Stalin is a very small subset of R4RS (note that the current is R7RS-small), and in many ways becomes a very small portion of an already small

Keep in mind that Stalin is a very small subset of R4RS (note that the current is R7RS-small), and in many ways becomes a very small portion of an already small language. This makes it easy to optimize, but can be annoying if you're coming from other languages that are less spartan. As for using Stalin, I would argue that nowadays it is better to use the CHICKEN port of Stalin [1], as it is a bit more up-to-date and provides some extensions (such as using '\n' in string literals, something Stalin didn't provide from the outset!!!). In any case, it's nice to see the variety in Scheme implementations, but in the case of Stalin I personally turn my nose up, as CHICKEN is often fast enough on it's own (or can be made to be), without restricting myself to a very tiny set of tools and libraries. That's not to say the work on Stalin hasn't been appreciated, I'm sure Gambit and CHICKEN have taken their fair share of ideas from Stalin as time has gone on. [1] http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/stalin http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/stalin