Re: Blockers for Guile 2.2

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 27/02/2022 à 01:04, Han-Wen Nienhuys a écrit :
> On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 2:02 PM Jonas Hahnfeld <hahnjo@hahnjo.de> wrote:
> > > while we make work slower for folks that work on large
> > > scores and can afford to side-install Guile 1.8. It also makes
> > > development slower for ourselves. Yes, that means some of us will
> > > develop on a different platform than many users. This has been the
> > > case since we started supporting OSX and Windows.
> > I slightly disagree, running on a different platform is not the same as
> > running with a completely different set of dependencies. And we know
> > Guile 2.2 is completely different from 1.8.
> > > Everyone who is passionate about Guile 2.2 can develop against Guile 2.2.
> > So to be clear here: You would release official binaries with Guile 2.2
> > and rely on a subset of developers to fix the bugs while you make it
> > clear that you don't want to do that? Why would anybody accept that
> > job?
> I never said I don't want to fix Guile 2.2 bugs, and you should know
> as I spent lots and lots of time debugging #6218.  I also said I
> support moving CI to 2.2, so any MR would pass against 2.2.
>
> I am just asking to not drop 1.8 support.
>
> Most of the work we do isn't actually about Guile anyway,
>
> $ git log --since 2022/01/01 | grep ^commit|wc
>      257     514   12336
> $ git log  --grep=[Gg]uile --since 2022/01/01 | grep ^commit|wc
>        7      14     336



I agree that the version-specific code we have (cond-expand
and GUILEV2) isn't all that much. On the other hand, I would
be glad to be able to use Guile 2 features, such as Unicode
support, when and unless, (srfi srfi-71) (let and let*
accepting multiple values), S-expression comments,
scm_c_bind_keyword_arguments, and a few others. Now
that my principal concern with the sustainability of
Guile 2 binaries (shipping bytecode with them) is cleared,
I have mixed feelings about when to leave Guile 1 behind.
I understand the desire to keep fast development cycles,
but I think the cognitive burden of wondering whether
your code will work on both versions is not desirable
in the long run regardless of CI issues.

In my previous post I showed that compiling all Scheme
files can be done in 20s with Guile 2 (so a few seconds
for a single file), and 4s with Guile 3 (so near instant
for one file). Would that address your concern with
compilation speed?

Jean