Re: Scripting for installing a module

[James Crake-Merani <james@jamescm.co.uk>]

On 22/07/02 07:43pm, Zelphir Kaltstahl wrote:
> 
> On 7/2/22 10:46, James Crake-Merani wrote:
> > On 22/07/02 09:11am, adriano wrote:
> > > Il giorno ven, 01/07/2022 alle 18.15 +0100, James Crake-Merani ha
> > > scritto:
> > > > Hello,
> > > > 
> > > > I was just wondering what approach people tend to take when writing a
> > > > script which installs a module onto the load-path. I understand this
> > > > path might be different on different machines so how do you make sure
> > > > the module is installed in the right path? Would you use something
> > > > like a Makefile?
> > > not only a Makefile
> > > 
> > > The whole Autotools chain
> > > 
> > > There are 2 options:
> > > 
> > > 1) you write the config.am and Makefile.am (or however they're called)
> > > by hand and you deal with the Autotools directly, by hand
> > > 
> > > 2) You use guile-hall and it will wrap the Autotools making the
> > > experience a bit less frustrating
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > BUT
> > > 
> > > I wonder: why you want to install your module ?
> > > 
> > > You might want to distribute it as a simple handful of source files
> > > 
> > > Guile will compile it automagically at need
> > > 
> > > If your module has no dependencies, that could be an easy option
> > > 
> > > If it _has_ dependencies, then the Autotools might be of help
> > > 
> > > Did you think about this ?
> > > 
> > > I hate to second guess your question
> > > 
> > > I understand it might be perceived as rude and I'm sorry for that
> > > 
> > > I just think these distinctions in use cases are not clear at all, in
> > > the manual and in general
> > > 
> > > So this could be an easy pitfall
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Don't worry, you didn't come across as rude at all. My use case was simply that I wrote some modules that I wanted to distribute, and I thought that if I'm going to distribute them, I probably ought to put some sort of script in so users can install them as well. The modules in question are just a simple project which tests your conformance to a certain political ideology (which is not sophisticated at all because it was more of a joke between friends that I thought would make a good programming exercise). After seeing Guile Hall recommended by yourself, and Jeremy I thought this might be appropriate. My modules have no dependencies aside from those already part of Guile although I do intend to write another module which will depend on the previous module.
> > 
> > So if I were to take the latter approach of just distributing the source code then I presume users would have to load the file manually, or install it manually unless I'm missing something. In that case, I would've thought using something like Guile Hall would be more appropriate but again I might be missing something.
> > 
> > I have just found the manual pages detailing Guile Hall which I was not originally aware of. After reading them, it does seem to me that Hall would be appropriate for this but of course I would be willing to hear about alternatives to distributing the code.
> > 
> > Thanks for your response.
> 
> Hello James!
> 
> If your code is Guile code exclusively, then you might not need Guile Hall
> for packaging your code. You can make a GNU Guix package without Guile Hall.
> That is not to say, that Guile Hall does not work well, but I had a project,
> which I wanted to package and ultimately I did not want to depend on all the
> autotools machinery, which I do not understand. It has been a while, since I
> have packaged anything (I should really clean the repo a bit …), but the
> project I have is https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/guile-fslib. I think
> tag 0.2.1 should contain a valid guix.scm. This repo also still has files
> from previous Guile Hall attempts. However, you might have to study the docs
> to get things working for your own project and how to test it with guix. I
> remember, that I used a VM for testing installation of the package.
> Somewhere I have a repository, which describes the process.
> 
> Regards,
> Zelphir
> 
> -- 
> repositories: https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl
> 

Hi,

The reason why I have been a bit reluctant to use GNU Guix for this sort of thing is that the distro I use is not Guix but rather Arch Linux. I do intend to try out GNU Guix in the future but at the moment I have lots of other things to do. I am aware Guix does work on foreign distros but I will need to learn how to use it first.

I understand what you say regarding Guile Hall. I too do not understand the autotools machinery but it did seem simple to setup without that understanding. Thanks for sharing your repository.

I think for now I will probably end up using Guile Hall although I might experiment with just purely Guix, and see if I can get that to work how I want it as well.

Thanks.