mzc Is Not...

mzc does not produce stand-alone executables from Scheme source code. The compiler's output must always be loaded into MzScheme (or MrEd or DrScheme). See also section 4.

mzc does not translate Scheme code into similar C code. Native code compilation produces C code that relies on MzScheme to provide run-time support, which includes everything from memory management and closure creation to procedure application and primitive operations.

mzc is not yet an ``optimizing compiler,'' although future work will move mzc in that direction. Currently, native code programs compiled by mzc sometimes run slightly faster than code compiled by MzScheme directly from source code. Byte code programs produced by mzc run exactly the same as source code compiled by MzScheme directly (assuming the same set of macros, signatures, and syntax).