From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Greg Troxel Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Coexistence of different Guile versions Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:34:41 -0400 Message-ID: References: <8f94c78c-f947-e81c-df14-c9bb1d7fc376@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="112719"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.5 (berkeley-unix) Cc: guile-devel@gnu.org To: Tommi =?utf-8?B?SMO2eW7DpGzDpG5tYWE=?= Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 10 16:46:07 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1h30eN-000TF4-1m for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 16:46:07 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:46404 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h30eK-0003iX-RR for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:46:04 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:47373) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h30e2-0003ZK-6Y for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:45:46 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h30TL-0002bc-Aa for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:34:44 -0400 Original-Received: from linuxpal.mit.edu ([18.62.1.14]:60840) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h30TL-0002b2-53 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:34:43 -0400 Original-Received: by linuxpal.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 9545) id 7DF831607A; Sun, 10 Mar 2019 11:34:41 -0400 (EDT) OpenPGP: id=098ED60E X-Hashcash: 1:20:190310:guile-devel@gnu.org::KB/k3Xptsf+LS/ja:0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000HPU X-Hashcash: 1:20:190310:tommi.hoynalanmaa@gmail.com::bDAfn2+W/KOc9PUY:00000000000000000000000000000000005L+J In-Reply-To: <8f94c78c-f947-e81c-df14-c9bb1d7fc376@gmail.com> ("Tommi =?utf-8?B?SMO2eW7DpGzDpG5tYWEiJ3M=?= message of "Sun, 10 Mar 2019 17:23:05 +0200") X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 18.62.1.14 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:19858 Archived-At: Tommi H=C3=B6yn=C3=A4l=C3=A4nmaa writes: > Guile (at least the Debian version) is designed so that different > versions (e.g. 2.0 and 2.2) can coexist in the same system. However, > this is not so for packages guile-xxx-dev. Consequently, many software > libraries (such as guile-gnome-platform) have to be compiled for a > single Guile version and they can't be used for several Guile versions > in the same system. > > Could this be changed? For example, we could rename libguile.h to > libguile-.h and do the same for Guile libraries. I see this as a packaging issue. In pkgsrc, one can install multiple guile versions, each with headers (pkgsrc does not have the notion of -dev for headers; packages just have headers). It does this by using prefixes. For example guile 2.2 is built using the prefix /usr/pkg/guile/2.2 instead of the usual /usr/pkg. I think it's far easier to build different versions in different prefixes, letting depending packages add in that prefix, than to try to rename every file that's installed to have a version in it. The real issue though is that guile seems to not have a stable enough API that there are lots of things out there that have to use old versions. Fixing that would be best :-) but I realize that everything has a good reason and that's easier said than done.