[ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hello,

It is with great trepidation and joy that I finally release Hall to the
world.

You can get it with Guix after pulling the latest version with
$ guix package -i guile-hall

Otherwise you can get the code from
https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
using the traditional
$ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
dance.

What is Guile Hall?

From the README:

Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.

It's fundamental aim is to provide a black box that just works (tm)
for you so you distribute, manage & create guile projects.

Currently I use it to manage my other published project, guile-config,
as well as some unpublished libraries, that I'll hopefully be able to
publish soon-ish.

This project is part of my overall goal of creating user-friendly basic
tooling & libraries for Guile to encourage newbies to start building
with Guile.

Feedback, thoughts or discussion very welcome!

Best wishes,

Alex

PS: I fully expect something to go wrong when the first person tries to
install / use it.  Please let me know! :D

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello Alex,

Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:

> Otherwise you can get the code from
> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
> using the traditional
> $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
> dance.
>
> What is Guile Hall?
>
> From the README:
>
> Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
> allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
> to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
> hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.

This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.

In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.

I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to it
from guile.texi, too.

I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where Hall
would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic things
like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
approach.  Thoughts?

Thank you!

Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Ludo,

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Hello Alex,
>
> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> Otherwise you can get the code from
>> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
>> using the traditional
>> $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
>> dance.
>>
>> What is Guile Hall?
>>
>> From the README:
>>
>> Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
>> allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
>> to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
>> hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.
>
> This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
> distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.
>
> In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
> time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.

Thanks for your kind and thoughtful notes :-)

> I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
> newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to it
> from guile.texi, too.

That would be wonderful — I'm particularly interested in hearing from
relative newcomers as to the user journey and/or ease of use!

I anticipate I'll be adding a manual for the next release or so, but I
want to see how the project performs in my own world, and in public for
a while first.  It may need some re-architecturing! 

> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where Hall
> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic things
> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
> approach.  Thoughts?

Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?

My thinking guiding the project so far is that I think Guix is the
de-facto Guile package manager, and as such I want to encourage an easy
user-journey for people towards using/contributing to it.  But if we can
offer a fully stand-alone "run your self-contained Guile project with no
dependencies" workflow, which offers a user journey to autotools/guix
distribution without the user having to do any additional work, then
that might certainly be interesting!

> Thank you!
>
> Ludo’.

Thank you for your comments!

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Ludovic Courtès]

Heya,

Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:

>> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where Hall
>> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic things
>> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
>> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
>> approach.  Thoughts?
>
> Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
> compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
> wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
> pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?

I’m thinking of a “hall build” command that would build Scheme files and
produce a wrapper script, and optionally “hall install” as well.

It’s interesting only if it can be done without reimplementing too much
of the Autoconf/Automake or Guix logic, I suppose.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[alex sassmannshausen]

On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, 17:09 Ludovic Courtès, <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> Heya,
>
> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> >> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where Hall
> >> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic things
> >> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
> >> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
> >> approach.  Thoughts?
> >
> > Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
> > compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
> > wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
> > pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?
>
> I’m thinking of a “hall build” command that would build Scheme files and
> produce a wrapper script, and optionally “hall install” as well.


> It’s interesting only if it can be done without reimplementing too much
> of the Autoconf/Automake or Guix logic, I suppose.
>

Agreed. I do think having some easy way of "running" your project would be
cool.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Alex

Aw: Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

> Gesendet: Dienstag, 03. Juli 2018 um 09:03 Uhr
> Von: "alex sassmannshausen" <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com>
> An: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
> Cc: guile-user@gnu.org
> Betreff: Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)
>
> On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, 17:09 Ludovic Courtès, <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> > Heya,
> >
> > Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
> >
> > >> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where Hall
> > >> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic things
> > >> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
> > >> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
> > >> approach.  Thoughts?
> > >
> > > Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
> > > compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
> > > wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
> > > pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?
> >
> > I’m thinking of a “hall build” command that would build Scheme files and
> > produce a wrapper script, and optionally “hall install” as well.
> 
> 
> > It’s interesting only if it can be done without reimplementing too much
> > of the Autoconf/Automake or Guix logic, I suppose.
> >
> 
> Agreed. I do think having some easy way of "running" your project would be
> cool.
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts!

A while ago I started a project which simply sets up autotools: 

https://bitbucket.org/ArneBab/conf/src/default/

> conf - Initialize modern autotools projects
> Inspired by Mozilla Cargo ( http://doc.crates.io/guide.html ) but without the NIH and currently more limited in scope.
> See NEWS for user-visible changes. See ChangeLog or the history for detailed changes.

Going that way allows re-using all the features of autotools by providing simple templates for common setups — and a starting point for more complex ones.

Then hall build can simply be a wrapper for ./bootstrap.sh && ./configure && make

Best wishes,
Arne

Re: Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[alex sassmannshausen]

Hey Arne,

On Tue, 3 Jul 2018, 09:27 Arne Babenhauserheide, <Arne_Bab@web.de> wrote:

> > Gesendet: Dienstag, 03. Juli 2018 um 09:03 Uhr
> > Von: "alex sassmannshausen" <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com>
> > An: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
> > Cc: guile-user@gnu.org
> > Betreff: Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)
> >
> > On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, 17:09 Ludovic Courtès, <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Heya,
> > >
> > > Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
> > >
> > > >> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where
> Hall
> > > >> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic
> things
> > > >> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
> > > >> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
> > > >> approach.  Thoughts?
> > > >
> > > > Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
> > > > compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
> > > > wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
> > > > pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?
> > >
> > > I’m thinking of a “hall build” command that would build Scheme files
> and
> > > produce a wrapper script, and optionally “hall install” as well.
> >
> >
> > > It’s interesting only if it can be done without reimplementing too much
> > > of the Autoconf/Automake or Guix logic, I suppose.
> > >
> >
> > Agreed. I do think having some easy way of "running" your project would
> be
> > cool.
> >
> > Thanks for your thoughts!
>
> A while ago I started a project which simply sets up autotools:
>
> https://bitbucket.org/ArneBab/conf/src/default/
>
> > conf - Initialize modern autotools projects
> > Inspired by Mozilla Cargo ( http://doc.crates.io/guide.html ) but
> without the NIH and currently more limited in scope.
> > See NEWS for user-visible changes. See ChangeLog or the history for
> detailed changes.
>
> Going that way allows re-using all the features of autotools by providing
> simple templates for common setups — and a starting point for more complex
> ones.
>

From this description, it sounds fairly close to what hall does too! Sounds
like there's some overlap here :)

Then hall build can simply be a wrapper for ./bootstrap.sh && ./configure
> && make
>

Right, that could indeed already be the implementation of hall build
actually. Thanks for that idea!


Alex

Best wishes,
> Arne
>

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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alex sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> writes:

> Hey Arne,
>
> On Tue, 3 Jul 2018, 09:27 Arne Babenhauserheide, <Arne_Bab@web.de> wrote:
>
>> > Gesendet: Dienstag, 03. Juli 2018 um 09:03 Uhr
>> > Von: "alex sassmannshausen" <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com>
>> > An: "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
>> > Cc: guile-user@gnu.org
>> > Betreff: Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)
>> >
>> > On Mon, 2 Jul 2018, 17:09 Ludovic Courtès, <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Heya,
>> > >
>> > > Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>> > >
>> > > >> I wonder if it would be useful to have a “standalone” mode, where
>> Hall
>> > > >> would rely neither on Autoconf/Automake nor on Guix to do basic
>> things
>> > > >> like building code.  It might help newcomers.  You wouldn’t want to
>> > > >> reimplement everything though, so I don’t know if this is a viable
>> > > >> approach.  Thoughts?
>> > > >
>> > > > Interesting idea.  When you say building code, do you mean literally
>> > > > compiling a project within the project folder & perhaps generating a
>> > > > wrapper script that might update GUILE_LOAD_{COMPILED_}PATH à la
>> > > > pre-inst-env, or do you mean some form of installer?
>> > >
>> > > I’m thinking of a “hall build” command that would build Scheme files
>> and
>> > > produce a wrapper script, and optionally “hall install” as well.
>> >
>> >
>> > > It’s interesting only if it can be done without reimplementing too much
>> > > of the Autoconf/Automake or Guix logic, I suppose.
>> > >
>> >
>> > Agreed. I do think having some easy way of "running" your project would
>> be
>> > cool.
>> >
>> > Thanks for your thoughts!
>>
>> A while ago I started a project which simply sets up autotools:
>>
>> https://bitbucket.org/ArneBab/conf/src/default/
>>
>> > conf - Initialize modern autotools projects
>> > Inspired by Mozilla Cargo ( http://doc.crates.io/guide.html ) but
>> without the NIH and currently more limited in scope.
>> > See NEWS for user-visible changes. See ChangeLog or the history for
>> detailed changes.
>>
>> Going that way allows re-using all the features of autotools by providing
>> simple templates for common setups — and a starting point for more complex
>>
>
> From this description, it sounds fairly close to what hall does too! Sounds
> like there's some overlap here :)

Good ideas seldomly come alone, yet only those keep going which are
pushed forward by their creators — kudos for doing what I didn’t manage to!

> Then hall build can simply be a wrapper for ./bootstrap.sh && ./configure
>> && make
>>
>
> Right, that could indeed already be the implementation of hall build
> actually. Thanks for that idea!

Feel free to adopt it!

For Guile there’s already a nice autotools setup by Erik Edrosa¹² which
you could start from. I’ve been planning to adopt it into conf for half
a year now, but always got occupied by other stuff.

And once the autotools stuff is in place, packaging for Guix is just a
matter of designating a download location.

Best wishes,
Arne

¹: https://erikedrosa.com/2017/10/29/guile-projects-with-autotools.html
²: http://www.draketo.de/proj/with-guise-and-guile/guile-projects-with-autotools.html

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Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Catonano]

Il giorno dom 1 lug 2018 alle ore 22:36 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
scritto:

> Hello Alex,
>
> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> > Otherwise you can get the code from
> > https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
> > using the traditional
> > $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
> > dance.
> >
> > What is Guile Hall?
> >
> > From the README:
> >
> > Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
> > allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
> > to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
> > hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.
>
> This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
> distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.
>
> In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
> time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.
>
> I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
> newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to it
> from guile.texi, too.
>


That'd be great

I have a hard time in trying to fill the manual though

The blank page block !

It doesn't help that I don't fully understand the README file

I could use some help

Alex, Maybe you could edit a skeleton of how you see the manual with
paragraph titles titles only ?

That would allow me to try to fill it, to some extent.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Cato,

Catonano writes:

> Il giorno dom 1 lug 2018 alle ore 22:36 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
> scritto:
>
>> Hello Alex,
>>
>> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>>
>> > Otherwise you can get the code from
>> > https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
>> > using the traditional
>> > $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
>> > dance.
>> >
>> > What is Guile Hall?
>> >
>> > From the README:
>> >
>> > Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
>> > allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
>> > to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
>> > hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.
>>
>> This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
>> distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.
>>
>> In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
>> time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.
>>
>> I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
>> newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to it
>> from guile.texi, too.
>>
>
>
> That'd be great
>
> I have a hard time in trying to fill the manual though
>
> The blank page block !
>
> It doesn't help that I don't fully understand the README file
>
> I could use some help
>
> Alex, Maybe you could edit a skeleton of how you see the manual with
> paragraph titles titles only ?

You're quite right to point this out — I should get at least a draft
manual together now.

I will see if I can get this done this week.

Best wishes,

Alex

>
> That would allow me to try to fill it, to some extent.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Jérémy Korwin-Zmijowski]

Cool work ! Congratulations all of you.

I will try to use it for my personal projects!
Already waiting for the manual haha

Cheers

Jeko

Le 19 février 2019 20:05:11 GMT+01:00, Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> a écrit :
>Hi Cato,
>
>Catonano writes:
>
>> Il giorno dom 1 lug 2018 alle ore 22:36 Ludovic Courtès
><ludo@gnu.org> ha
>> scritto:
>>
>>> Hello Alex,
>>>
>>> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>>>
>>> > Otherwise you can get the code from
>>> > https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build
>(hopefully)
>>> > using the traditional
>>> > $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
>>> > dance.
>>> >
>>> > What is Guile Hall?
>>> >
>>> > From the README:
>>> >
>>> > Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries
>that
>>> > allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows
>you
>>> > to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
>>> > hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.
>>>
>>> This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
>>> distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.
>>>
>>> In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
>>> time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.
>>>
>>> I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
>>> newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to
>it
>>> from guile.texi, too.
>>>
>>
>>
>> That'd be great
>>
>> I have a hard time in trying to fill the manual though
>>
>> The blank page block !
>>
>> It doesn't help that I don't fully understand the README file
>>
>> I could use some help
>>
>> Alex, Maybe you could edit a skeleton of how you see the manual with
>> paragraph titles titles only ?
>
>You're quite right to point this out — I should get at least a draft
>manual together now.
>
>I will see if I can get this done this week.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Alex
>
>>
>> That would allow me to try to fill it, to some extent.

-- 
Envoyé de mon appareil Android avec Courriel K-9 Mail. Veuillez excuser ma brièveté.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Cato,

Catonano writes:

> Il giorno dom 1 lug 2018 alle ore 22:36 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
> scritto:
>
>> Hello Alex,
>>
>> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>>
>> > Otherwise you can get the code from
>> > https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
>> > using the traditional
>> > $ autoreconf -vif && ./configure && make
>> > dance.
>> >
>> > What is Guile Hall?
>> >
>> > From the README:
>> >
>> > Hall is a command-line application and a set of Guile libraries that
>> > allow you to quickly create and publish Guile projects.  It allows you
>> > to transparently support the GNU build system, manage a project
>> > hierarchy & provides tight coupling to Guix.
>>
>> This looks really great!  There’s this longstanding issue with
>> distributing Guile code, and this seems to be a good approach.
>>
>> In particular, that it’s not a Guix-only solution, while at the same
>> time offering Guix support is really a wise choice.
>>
>> I think we should advertise it widely, it’ll be immensely helpful to
>> newcomers.  When the manual is more complete ;-), we could refer to it
>> from guile.texi, too.
>>
>
>
> That'd be great
>
> I have a hard time in trying to fill the manual though
>
> The blank page block !
>
> It doesn't help that I don't fully understand the README file
>
> I could use some help
>
> Alex, Maybe you could edit a skeleton of how you see the manual with
> paragraph titles titles only ?
>
> That would allow me to try to fill it, to some extent.

I've now gotten around to writing a first draft of the manual.  It's
pretty complete.

To get access to it, pull the latest revision, do the autotools dance &
run make info.

You should then be able to read the info manual in all it's glory.

Obviously it will be part of the next release in Guix — but until then,
patches & feedback welcome!

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Amirouche Boubekki]

On 2018-07-01 14:07, Alex Sassmannshausen wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> It is with great trepidation and joy that I finally release Hall to the
> world.
> 
> You can get it with Guix after pulling the latest version with
> $ guix package -i guile-hall
> 
> Otherwise you can get the code from
> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
> using the traditional

This is nicely put. I will try to use to port the work I've done in chez
and compare both approaches or maybe bundle guile-web with it.

Do you recommend rebasing a project that has already autotools support
to use hall?

Thanks for sharing!

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall Release (v0.1.1)

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Amirouche,

Amirouche Boubekki writes:

> On 2018-07-01 14:07, Alex Sassmannshausen wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> It is with great trepidation and joy that I finally release Hall to the
>> world.
>>
>> You can get it with Guix after pulling the latest version with
>> $ guix package -i guile-hall
>>
>> Otherwise you can get the code from
>> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/, and build (hopefully)
>> using the traditional
>
> This is nicely put. I will try to use to port the work I've done in chez
> and compare both approaches or maybe bundle guile-web with it.
>
> Do you recommend rebasing a project that has already autotools support
> to use hall?

It depends…

On the one hand, if:
- you are comfortable with autotools
- your project includes non-guile modules that need to be installed
- your project has a complicated project hierarchy

Then it might not be worth using Hall.  In the last case you might still
use Hall to generate Guix files, but to be honest, that doesn't gain you
much.

On the other hand, if:
- your autotools-fu is cargo-culty (like mine is)
- your project is Guile only
- you find the steps of maintaining the autotools infrastructure and
  rolling releases a pain

Then you might well benefit from switching to Hall.

It is definitely possible to use hand-written configure.ac files &
Makefile.am files with Hall: it simply does not touch those files.  On
the other hand, one of the nice things about Hall is that you can
regenerate a lot of the "infrastructure" files easily (autotools, basic
documentation, guix), and that feature obviously becomes more attractive
if you fully convert to the Hall way.

In any case, if you do want to give it a go, you probably want to use
$ hall init --convert [project-name] --author=$author

It will output the files to be generated, have a look whether that seems
sensible, then run with the --execute flag to create the files.

Then open the generated hall.scm file and try to map your project
folder-hierarchy to the files section.

Alternatively you could give
$ hall scan
a shot.  It will try to generate a new hall.scm file on the basis of
your project hierarchy — bit it may fail to do so.

You can then run with --execute if you actually want to update your
hall.scm file.

I would suggest, play around.  Though you'll probably find it way more
satisfying to use from the get go in a new project as you get the
expected user journey.

> Thanks for sharing!

My pleasure :)

Alex