From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Noah Lavine Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Minimal Guile Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:32:04 -0500 Message-ID: References: <1324326921.17612.YahooMailNeo@web37905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1324333935 6512 80.91.229.12 (19 Dec 2011 22:32:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:32:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel To: Mike Gran Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Dec 19 23:32:11 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Rclkg-0001MW-F6 for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:32:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36531 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rclkf-0000m6-N2 for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:32:09 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:38609) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rclkd-0000lz-Ga for guile-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:32:08 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rclkc-0007nK-Bu for guile-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:32:07 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-iy0-f169.google.com ([209.85.210.169]:39424) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rclkc-0007nG-3h for guile-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:32:06 -0500 Original-Received: by iacb35 with SMTP id b35so8707355iac.0 for ; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:32:05 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=E26K7XO/hlmhV3xJQeI09uSf/UZUaOHtqIoOgHCe59E=; b=Av8tqMrfGMwKslJ30twb1k+4Djict4KvB/NlBM6U/HV/fk+ri6R465lO2ZbzSvpKDQ 50mH1Gr7MRzJV/D7PQLvVYxSq2zC5zETxt7c9PBBQJqvqmylBaGPObvo76AWSIIN5LNG RHNpdSpXi4ZmlECrpYF4UfG/uBEGWYu3K1Ym0= Original-Received: by 10.50.217.199 with SMTP id pa7mr30367529igc.48.1324333924910; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:32:04 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.42.217.6 with HTTP; Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:32:04 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <1324326921.17612.YahooMailNeo@web37905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Google-Sender-Auth: NV_zXwWIMqL14ZCJ_s67AJ9oUmw X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.210.169 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:13165 Archived-At: This is an interesting point. I was thinking about it though, and I think there is another thing that is causing a lot of this "bloat": all of the Scheme modules we are adding. There is a tension here, because having lots of modules is very important for using Guile as a language to write programs in. But when it is used as an extension to other languages, most of them are not useful. So if I were dreaming and not thinking about how hard it is to write code, I would get a system that lets me pick which modules I want to distribute and bundle them up with libguile into a package that can be distributed and built on its own. This would also end up addressing some of your examples, if this hypothetical packager grew the ability to know about C as well as Scheme modules. Then it could automatically remove the C code that implements functions that were not wanted. This is just an idea, though. This seems like a huge pain to code. Noah On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Mike Gran wrote: > Hi- > > I've been keeping up with some of the discussion on other gnu lists. > > One of the criticisms at the moment is that Guile is > > 1. bloated > 2. hard to distribute. > > Re point 2: hard to distribute. > > A while ago I was looking at the idea of minimizing the number of > files needed to ship Guile as a dependency. =A0At the time, I thought > that one could retool the build so that it produced > - a tar.gz of the distributable header files > - libguile=A0as a monolithic .so or .dll with no dependencies. > =A0 Dependencies would be wrapped into the monolithic .so or .dll. > - all the compiled .go files as a tar file > - and a Guile executable that used both of the above > > Guile and libguile=A0would read the .go without unpacking the tar file > by using libtar. > > There's no real advantage in this for the GNU system, but, it would > make it easier to make a distributable cross-build for non-GNU > systems.=A0 This would make it easier to set up a download repository > of prebuilt .so, .dll, and go-lib tar files. > > Re point 1: bloated > > Once=A0the infrastructure for the above is in place, one could set > up an alternate cross-build system that produced a version of > Guile that is > > - ASCII only, "C" locale only > - Fixnum integers only > - No ability to load ltdl or ffi > - no ability to use whatever=A0libcrypt is used for > > This would be for the purpose of being a minimalist extension > engine. > > What do you think? > > -Mike Gran >