From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Neil Jerram Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Adding stuff to the core distro (was Re: Infix syntax) Date: 13 Oct 2002 15:27:23 +0100 Sender: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1034522272 21145 127.0.0.1 (13 Oct 2002 15:17:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 15:17:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 180kV4-0005Ug-00 for ; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 17:17:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 180kVk-0001ad-00; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 11:18:32 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 180kUu-00082u-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 11:17:40 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 180kUp-0007o0-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 11:17:38 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.uklinux.net ([80.84.72.21] helo=s1.uklinux.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 180kUn-0007j8-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 11:17:33 -0400 Original-Received: from laruns.ossau.uklinux.net (bts-0357.dialup.zetnet.co.uk [194.247.49.101]) by s1.uklinux.net (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g9DFHSX09558; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 16:17:29 +0100 Original-Received: from laruns.ossau.uklinux.net.ossau.uklinux.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by laruns.ossau.uklinux.net (Postfix on SuSE Linux 7.2 (i386)) with ESMTP id 93BCEDC4DA; Sun, 13 Oct 2002 15:27:23 +0100 (BST) Original-To: Daniel Skarda <0rfelyus@ucw.cz> Original-Lines: 60 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 Errors-To: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1540 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1540 >>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Skarda <0rfelyus@ucw.cz> writes: Daniel> I my opinion, breaking guile into small (orthogonal) Daniel> packages is nice from "pure" developer's view, but it Daniel> fails in "real world" and builds unnecessary walls between Daniel> Guile and Joe Average Programmer, who wants to evaluate Daniel> Guile: I agree; I've been thinking about some of my own guile packages that I have been keeping separate (from each other) and came to the same conclusion: it's a pain for me because of the overhead of working out dependencies and the best place for everything, and it puts barriers in the way of someone coming across something interesting just because it is there. With their xxx-pers-scheme distributions, ttn and mgrabmue have had this right all along. Daniel> Do you think that Mr Joe A. Programmer will choose Guile Daniel> because Scheme is superior language and "Official GNU blah Daniel> blah blah"? Yes I do, but that doesn't mean we have to make other aspects of the experience hard. Daniel> * Read "guile-debugger" thread on guile-devel. Even Daniel> developers have not known that there is guile-debugger Daniel> package. In this case, though, the package is still new and possibly not ready for the core. Daniel> So these were my arguments I could think of. Please try Daniel> to write down your oppinions. Here are the opposing arguments that I can think of. - As Rob says, life gets tricky if the distro as a whole has more external dependencies - e.g. gtk, xlib, postgres, librx. Building from source is OK: just allow and handle a corresponding --with-xxx flag to ./configure for each dependency. But distributors will want to build different pieces with different dependencies: - the "core" piece, with no additional dependencies - the gtk add-on piece, which depends on the core and on Gtk etc. Note that, if this logic is correct, distribution package users will always end up seeing lots of small packages, even if coming from a single Guile distribution. It might be fun to have a flexible build that allowed to build all these pieces from a single distribution, but (i) would we just be reinventing the wheel known normally as packages, and (ii) is it worth it just for the ./configure && makers? Or we could agree only to bundle stuff that does not introduce any new dependencies. - Download size. (Although, globally, this is reduced, by not multiplying copies of COPYING, ltmain.sh, texinfo.tex etc.) _______________________________________________ Guile-devel mailing list Guile-devel@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-devel