I actually have a full demonstration of using Chez to build a full "Unix application" that works 'just as you would expect'. Comes with complete Chez support: profile-guided rebuilds, coverage support, C extensions, some basic test stuff, a custom C boot kernel, and utility for portable .tar.gz builds. It even correctly copies out the boot files for a reidstributable build.
I could have extended this to "unpack the boot file out of my own elf executable" for a truly reusable binary but that seemed overkill. Also, if you keep the boot files, it then becomes possible to still drop into a Chez prompt and load your boot file from there for early debugging, which can be convenient and I didn't want to spend more time on that.
But, uhhhh, you're right if you want a one off binary, Chicken or something is way better. I spent like a week working on that skeleton so I could start working on my application itself. And my Makefile to support all this is extremely intense. But it works pretty well now and is very reusable and generic.
I'll get around to releasing it now I suppose!
I think scheme is woefully underrated as something that can be used for "real work", especially with something like chez. You can find my email or other contact info through my bio, I'm dead serious!
(display "Hello, World!~n")
Gambit makes fast, small binaries. Unfortunately you pay for that with a lack of libraries.
No, it cannot currently. It makes boot files which still need to be launched with scheme / petite.
The build + library/module system with chez is also pretty unusable. If you want to write scheme for a system where you deploy an entire OS, it's not too much to work around. If you're trying to write a 1-off binary, you should go with chicken.