Re: ASDF for guile (Was Re: guile-lib things)

[Andy Wingo]

Yo,

Just a quick reply, some more will have to come tomorrow...

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Chris Hall wrote:

> Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > I wanted to lay these conflicts out on the table, so that the choices we
> > make as distributors/packagers/coders are more coherent (that word
> > again!), and so that we can discuss them. Perhaps they are indicative of
> > the fundamental problem of guile-lib: it's centralized. Compared to
> > something like asdf or CPAN, we're doing too much work. But then unlike
> > CL or Perl, Scheme doesn't have a standard module system. Thoughts on
> 
> Sorry - I'm a little confused by the terminology here.
> 
> By "standard module system" do you mean a standard
> distribution/build/install system?  Isn't that what asdf/CPAN do?

No, I mean what guile calls modules, what C calls libraries, what CL
calls packages, etc. If that were standardized across all of Scheme, I
think we would see a CPAN for scheme. However, in the present situation,
any prospective author of a CPAN/asdf/... doesn't have much to work on.

If we consider guile to be the target _language_, that's a different
situation.

> > how to decentralize, or the merits of decentralization, are certainly
> > welcome.
> 
> I'd vote for de-centralized, even though each has its pluses and
> minuses.

Yeah, I'm definitely for decentralized, too. I want it to be easy to
code in guile, and a viable source of third-party code is one key
factor. So, guile-lib. But they way it is now isn't a model for _the
source_ of third party code.

A decentralized guile-lib would be more work, of course. (That's why
it's centralized now.) If there's enough interest, we could work on
specifying and implementing a decentralized system. But I won't
implement one on my own without a reasonable idea that other people
would be also walking down that same path ;)

> On a related note:  how feasible would an 'asdf for guile' be?  Is there
> a need for such a thing?

Want to design one? :-)

> It seems to me that guile is *more* appropriate than lisp for this sort
> of task, since guile is already so integrated to its host OS,

Maybe... But in the ideal world, POSIX is just another module.

> It does seem that the amazing 'make' facility in use by so many free (as
> in speech) packages is overkill for a lot of purposes, never mind the
> challenges of doing a good make procedure.  For guile-only (no C)
> packages especially a version of asdf for guile would seem golden.

I would be hesitant to abandon make, personally. (Consider, how could
g-wrap or guile-gnome be installed by such a system?) But whatever,
that's a detail.

> Hmmm.

Hmm indeed.

Regards,

Wingo.