guile-hall packaging guide

[Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@posteo.de>]

Hi Alex!

I've begun writing the guide for using guile-hall to package GNU Guile
libraries/programs:

https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/gnu-guile-gnu-guix-packaging-guide

If you would like to take a look and if you see any mistakes, imprecise
terminology, missing explanations or anything, please let me know and I
will try to improve it.

Still have to get to the tests with the master branch and all that. I
guess I will first get a first version of that guide done and then use
it to go through the steps testing the up-to-date version of guile-hall.

Best regards,
Zelphir

On 2/21/21 2:42 PM, Alex Sassmannshausen wrote:
> Hi Zelphir,
>
> Some notes inline:
>
> Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@posteo.de> writes:
>
>> I am willing to test/try some more.
> Great, that's really good to hear!
>
>> When you say "since commit xyz", do you mean commit of guile-hall
>> itself, or a commit of Guix, where an updated version of guile-hall is
>> available?
> I mean in the guile-hall repository. But you should be able to do:
> guix install guile-hall --with-commit="guile-hall=HASH"
> to get the right version.
>
> I *think* it should just build and work.
>
>> How would I test the master branch version? I would guess install it in
>> a guix environment and then use that environment to try and convert a
>> project.
> Yeah, that would work too.
>
> You should even be able to combine the two and go with:
> guix environment --ad-hoc guile guile-hall --with-commit="guile-hall=HASH"
>
>> What would you suggest testing?
> I think it would be best if you tried using the convert command and see
> whether it gets you better results this time around.  Outside of that,
> probably playing with the new --skip option and `scan' arguments might
> be useful and interesting for you.
>
>> It was quite OK to edit hall.scm in an editor. Perhaps, if a project is
>> significantly bigger than my project, it would become cumbersome, but
>> for me personally it is fine, now that I know what goes in there and how
>> it needs to look.
> Good to hear. The spec was always meant to be human readable. Still, the
> new scan options might make it easier to add additional files
> gradually.
>
>> I have not yet begun writing a guide for converting a project. Hopefully
>> I'll be able to do so soon.
> That would be very interesting to see!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Alex
>
>> Best regards,
>> Zelphir
>>
>> On 2/17/21 10:17 PM, Alex Sassmannshausen wrote:
>>> Hi Zelphir and Tim,
>>>
>>> I am the author of guile hall — apologies for only now getting into this
>>> thread. I'm afraid I have been somewhat distracted with other things.
>>>
>>> First of all I want to echo what others have said — thank you very much
>>> for your detailed descriptions of what exactly happened when you tried
>>> to migrate the project to guile hall.
>>>
>>> The aim of the project is to massively reduce the barrier of entry to
>>> creating new, portable, high quality guile projects — and to contribute
>>> them to Guix. Your descriptions suggest it's not there yet!
>>>
>>> In any case, some comments inline:
>>>
>>> Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@posteo.de> writes:
>>>
>>>> Hello Tim!
>>>>
>>>> Thank you, it works now!
>>>>
>>>> Removing the duplicate entry of `fslib` in hall.scm fixed it.
>>> Fwiw, since commit ac76541a this issue can be automatically resolved by
>>> running scan once more: it should remove duplicate entries in hall.scm.
>>>
>>>> Regarding the license: OK, I have no problem moving my license to
>>>> `COPYING`. However, I still think, that it should not put GPL there,
>>>> when I specified AGPL in `hall.scm`. This looks like a hardcoded
>>>> fallback, which does not take the license specification into account.
>>>> Something like: "If there is no `COPYING` file just put GPL into a file
>>>> `COPYING`." instead of "If there is no `COPYING` file just put
>>>> <user-specified-license-in-hall.scm> into a file `COPYING`.". I could be
>>>> wrong though, as I do not know anything about guile-hall's internals.
>>> This is odd — Hall should respect your license choice. It should, for
>>> (A)GPL licenses automatically download those from the internet and
>>> install them in COPYING. There was an issue with those licenses hiding
>>> behind a 302 status code, which resulted in fallback text being loaded
>>> in COPYING. But even that fallback text should respect your license.
>>>
>>> I just tried changing my license to AGPLv3+ in one of my projects,
>>> running hall from Master (the most recent commit fixes the 302 license
>>> issue), and it's fetching the license correctly.
>>>
>>> I'd be interested in seeing what your experience is if you are willing
>>> to try?
>>>
>>> In any case, Hall is undergoing active development, and I'm hoping to
>>> have a fresh release end of this month, with a whole bunch of
>>> improvements and bug fixes. Definitely feel free to drop issues to me
>>> directly by email or on gitlab (though some of the ones you raised have
>>> been fixed, like the unknown filetype issue).
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>>> Follow up question would be, how to bring the package into the guix
>>>> repository, but I am guessing, that it will be answered at
>>>> https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Direct-checkout-hacking.html,
>>>> which I have not read yet.
>>>>
>>>> Another question is, whether I should put you into the authors file and
>>>> write something like "help with packaging" there. What is the common
>>>> practice?
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Zelphir
>>>>
>>>> On 2/16/21 5:48 PM, Tim Van den Langenbergh wrote:
>>>>> Err, looking at your hall.scm file, you have the fslib file added to your
>>>>> libraries twice.
>>>>>
>>>>> Guix environment is not needed if you have all the requirements for building
>>>>> the package installed locally, but if you want to distribute your package it's
>>>>> good practise to ensure it builds in a clean environment (see also https://
>>>>> guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-environment.html for more
>>>>> information about Guix environments).
>>>>>
>>>>> The "COPYING" file is hardcoded as license file in Hall, to ensure compatibility
>>>>> with GNU standards: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.en.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Hope this helps,
>>>>>
>>>>> Vale
>>>>>
>>>>> -Tim
>>>>>
>>>>>
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