scheme to C

scheme to C

[Mr. Peter Ivanyi]

Hi,

Reading some past messages from the list, I have the impression that
there used to be a compiler from scheme to C (hobbit ?) but it is
broken now. Can somebody tell me how it is broken, does not work
at all, etc ... ? How difficult to make hobbit work again ?
Does it require major changes ?

Thanks in advance.

					Peter Ivanyi

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Re: scheme to C

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: "Mr. Peter Ivanyi" <peteri@carme.sect.mce.hw.ac.uk>
   Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:36:48 +0100

   Reading some past messages from the list, I have the impression that
   there used to be a compiler from scheme to C (hobbit ?) but it is
   broken now. Can somebody tell me how it is broken, does not work at
   all, etc ... ? How difficult to make hobbit work again ?  Does it
   require major changes ?

these questions were asked by the compiler author himself (revisiting
guile after a few years abroad), but the answers are still not known.
however, they are *knowable* and probably continued 1.4.1.x hacking will
teach me enough to provide them (hobbit revival is the explicitly
intended side effect of answering these questions, after all).

i was hoping current crop of guile mungers could help, but now i'm more
realistic about their abilities and inclinations.  if you would like to
help, i suggest a hands-on approach: build {guile,hobbit}-1.3.4, run
them, take notes, try hobbit-1.3.4 w/ guile-1.4.x, take notes on what
breaks, post notes for discussion.

perhaps a small subset of programs works w/ hobbit-1.3.4/guile-1.4.x.
if so, we can collect them under examples/compilation/, add appropriate
configure.in checks for hobbit and augment the "make installcheck" flow.

thi


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Re: scheme to C

[Bernard Urban]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@giblet.glug.org> writes:

>    From: "Mr. Peter Ivanyi" <peteri@carme.sect.mce.hw.ac.uk>
>    Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:36:48 +0100
> 
>    Reading some past messages from the list, I have the impression that
>    there used to be a compiler from scheme to C (hobbit ?) but it is
>    broken now. Can somebody tell me how it is broken, does not work at
>    all, etc ... ? How difficult to make hobbit work again ?  Does it
>    require major changes ?
> 
> these questions were asked by the compiler author himself (revisiting
> guile after a few years abroad), but the answers are still not known.
> however, they are *knowable* and probably continued 1.4.1.x hacking will
> teach me enough to provide them (hobbit revival is the explicitly
> intended side effect of answering these questions, after all).

As a guile-hobbit maintainer, I can say that there is a 1.4.1 version,
functioning with guile of the same release. I use it regularly. At the
time of this last release (end 2000), I was unable to put the
sources to a public guile ftp server, so very few people use this
version, but now this may be possible ? 

I have even filled forms for the FSF to turn the copyright to them, as
I have no short term plan to upgrade hobbit to be 1.6 compatible. This
because I have no need to upgrade to a more recent guile version so far.

> 
> i was hoping current crop of guile mungers could help, but now i'm more
> realistic about their abilities and inclinations.  if you would like to
> help, i suggest a hands-on approach: build {guile,hobbit}-1.3.4, run
> them, take notes, try hobbit-1.3.4 w/ guile-1.4.x, take notes on what
> breaks, post notes for discussion.
> 
> perhaps a small subset of programs works w/ hobbit-1.3.4/guile-1.4.x.
> if so, we can collect them under examples/compilation/, add appropriate
> configure.in checks for hobbit and augment the "make installcheck" flow.
> 
> thi

(I catch this mail in the middle of a vacation, so do not expect a fast
answer if interested in the 1.4.1 sources.)

-- 

Bernard Urban


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Re: scheme to C

[Marius Vollmer]

Bernard Urban <Bernard.Urban@meteo.fr> writes:

> At the time of this last release (end 2000), I was unable to put the
> sources to a public guile ftp server,

Why weren't you able to do this?

> so very few people use this version, but now this may be possible ?

Yes.  We can at least link to it.

> I have even filled forms for the FSF to turn the copyright to them,
> as I have no short term plan to upgrade hobbit to be 1.6
> compatible. This because I have no need to upgrade to a more recent
> guile version so far.

Do you have an estimate of how much work this would be?

-- 
GPG: D5D4E405 - 2F9B BCCC 8527 692A 04E3  331E FAF8 226A D5D4 E405


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Re: scheme to C

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: Bernard Urban <Bernard.Urban@meteo.fr>
   Date: 07 Oct 2002 10:39:49 +0200

   (I catch this mail in the middle of a vacation, so do not expect a
   fast answer if interested in the 1.4.1 sources.)

great news -- i'm glad to be mistaken about hobbit availability for
guile!  could you post a pointer to the source?[1]  i am interested in
finalizing "hobbit as backend for compiled modules" methodology for
integration into a guile 1.4.x (x > 1) release.  the plan is initially
to support command-line operation:

   guile-tools modtool compile [options] file.scm [...]

          this creates a "compiled module bundle" (exact term to be
          decided) comprising some top-level config file and the real
          guts in a .modules subdir.  the model here is libtool and it's
          ".la pointing to actual bunch of files/symlinks in .libs"
          approach.

	  options can include "--name MODULE" (for those files
	  that do not have a define-module form), "--init FUNC" (to
	  override the defaultly constructed init func name), 
               
   guile-tools modtool install BUNDLE DIR

          again we use libtool for inspiration here.  installation
          frobs the top-level config and copies things into place.

   guile-tools modtool installcheck DIR/BUNDLE [TEST ...]

          now we take inspiration from automake.  supporting "check" may
	  also be possible -- that's a more difficult problem but not
	  unsolvable (solving it allows us to move to the second phase:
	  compiler use from repl via "compile-object" or the like).  the
	  installcheck runs the tests (if specified) after having loaded
	  the module (the degenerate test case).

a sticking point w/ full-circle methodology has been where to install
binary files so that the module system can find them, and yet still
conform to the common practice of separating arch-independent files from
arch-dependent ones.  guile 1.4.1.91 (http://www.glug.org/tmp/2002-10/)
adds $pkglibdir/$guileversion to %load-path:

   $ guile -c '(for-each write-line %load-path)'
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile/site
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile/1.4.1.91
   /home/ttn/local/share/guile
   /home/ttn/local/lib/guile/1.4.1.91		;; (here)
   .

this allows librgx (nee librx) to be loaded as "(modules rgx)" w/o need
for a scheme wrapper.  although the same can be used for hobbit-compiled
modules, i'd like to learn about your installation/use discipline to see
how this can be improved.  perhaps per-directory registries (a la the
PLUGIN files of yore) are the way to go...

thi


[1] to be mirrored in http://www.glug.org/alt/ -- let me know if
    you have any objections to that location.


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