[ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hello,

I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
0.3.0.

You can get a tarball (that requires autoreconf) at
https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/-/releases.

You can also install it with the latest Guix (from a3dfe05285):
$ guix install guile-hall

You can check the source code, and report issues at
https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/.

I would like to thank the following people, who have all contributed
issues, thougts or code.

    Stephen Scheck <singularsyntax@gmail.com>
    Jose A. Ortega Ruiz <jao@gnu.org>
    Jack Hill <jackhill@jackhill.us>
    Adriano Peluso <catonano@gmail.com>

Release notes below, under * Changes in 0.3 (since 0.2.1).

* From the README file

Hall aims to provide a black box that "just works" (tm), so that you
can create, develop, build & distribute Guile projects.

With Hall you will be able to:
- Manage a Guile project hierarchy from one project spec file.
- Transparently support the GNU build system for maximum portability.
- Leverage tight coupling to Guix for reliability & confidence.
- Profit.

This README is all written documentation that currently exists.  The
project must be considered Alpha software at this stage.

Nonetheless, all commands and arguments are documented, and passing
the -h flag to any command or sub-command should provide you with some
guidance.  In addition all procedures in the codebase are documented
with docstrings.

* Changes in 0.3 (since 0.2.1)

** Allow adding single files to hall.scm using `hall scan'

   `hall scan' now accepts two optional arguments so that you can quickly add
   individual files to your hall.scm file, even if your project state is
   dirty.  This is an alternative to running the full auto-magic `hall scan'
   command.

** Emit user friendly error messages for common failures

   Hitherto we simply used `throw' to error out of unexpected situations.
   This would happen even in the case of user error or predictable situations.

   I consider the codebase solid enough to emit more user-friendly error
   messages in predictable situations.

** Allow use of fully-fledged regexp to --skip files

   The `scan' and `clean' subcommands accept a --skip keyword to exclude
   specific (classes of) files from their operation.  So far they had to be
   precise files.  The --skip keyword now expects Guile style regex pattern
   strings for increased flexibility.

** Add a notes system for giving advice to the user

   Hall aims to understand your project and the files it contains, even if it
   does not fully support your use case.  To this end, its architecture
   creates a representation of your project in the hall.scm file.

   Hall now has a facility for emitting useful commentary when creating or
   manipulating this representation.

   A current case in point at present is that we understand that Guile
   projects may include C files — but Hall does not support them in its build
   infrastructure.  So we want to allow & support users who include C files,
   but we want to warn them about Hall's short-comings in this area.

** Change the filetype architecture

   So far, filetype registration code was spread out over the codebase.  From
   this version we support a simple <filetype> interface.  Supported filetypes
   are declared in /hall/spec.scm.

   Supporting more filetypes is as easy as adding a simple declaration there.

   This sets up a further development allowing individual projects to specify
   filetypes above and beyond Hall's built-in filetypes.

** Support XML, C, .log, .trs, .tex, & emacs autosave/backup files

   A simple development thanks to the above.

** Add a default .gitignore file

   Hall has strong opinions about development, primarily to stop new
   developers from having to make bewildering choices.  Currently it pushes
   strong git & guix integration, as well as a specific documentation and
   folder structure.  As such we now add a standard .gitignore file that
   should cover the vast majority of use cases.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Jack Hill]

On May 16, 2020 11:41:15 AM EDT, Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
>0.3.0.

Yay, thank you! I'll have to write some more Guile software so I can play around with it more. Meanwhile, the project where I am using it continues to be managed happily.

Best,
Jack

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno sab 16 mag 2020 alle ore 17:41 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hello,
>
> I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
> 0.3.0.
>
>
Thank you Alex !

I believe the most important step now would be to write a manual at least
partially

So that guile-hall could be mentioned in the Guile manual

I think it'd be an important step in the Guile user experience story

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Heya,


Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> Il giorno sab 16 mag 2020 alle ore 17:41 Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Hello,
>
>  I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
>  0.3.0.
>
> Thank you Alex !
>
> I believe the most important step now would be to write a manual at least partially

Haha, I was super confused by your message, as I had spent a lot of time
writing a manual already, but it turns out the direntry line was missing
a '.', which caused the manual to be installed, but not to be listed in
the manual index.

I've now fixed this and rolled a new release.

Thanks for drawing my attention to this!

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno sab 16 mag 2020 alle ore 22:57 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
> Heya,
>
>
> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Il giorno sab 16 mag 2020 alle ore 17:41 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> >  Hello,
> >
> >  I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
> >  0.3.0.
> >
> > Thank you Alex !
> >
> > I believe the most important step now would be to write a manual at
least partially
>
> Haha, I was super confused by your message, as I had spent a lot of time
> writing a manual already,


This was a mistake on my side

I have been a bit far away from guile/guix stuff in the last months and I
had missed the guile-hall manual

Or if I had seen it I didn't remember about it

I saw it only after having sent that email

Sorry

>
> but it turns out the direntry line was missing
> a '.', which caused the manual to be installed, but not to be listed in
> the manual index.
>
> I've now fixed this and rolled a new release.
>
> Thanks for drawing my attention to this!


So all is well

Now, I like to remind that Ludo had proposed to _mention_ guile-hall in the
guix.texi manual !!

Here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2018-07/msg00002.html

"I think we should advertise it widely"

I wholeheartedly agree

This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough

Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hey Cato,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> […]
>
> This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough
>
> Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?

I guess section '4.6 Using Guile Tools' might be a good place to put it?

4.5 advetises paredit and geiser — but that is specific to Emacs.  4.6
is about guile tools more generally.  So I imagine something like the
blurbs about paredit and geiser, but then for hall and in 4.6?

What do you think?

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno dom 17 mag 2020 alle ore 17:35 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hey Cato,
>
> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > […]
> >
> > This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough
> >
> > Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?
>
> I guess section '4.6 Using Guile Tools' might be a good place to put it?
>
> 4.5 advetises paredit and geiser — but that is specific to Emacs.  4.6
> is about guile tools more generally.  So I imagine something like the
> blurbs about paredit and geiser, but then for hall and in 4.6?
>
> What do you think?
>
>
I'm ok with that

I'm somewhat puzzled by 4.7, it's about installing Guile code.

It mentions system controlled locations (on traditional systems) such as
usr/lib/...

it seems it assumes that people install guile object files by hand ?

On another side, if you have some .scm files scattered around, they will be
autocompiled and the result will be put into some well hidden buried folder
in your home folder

Ah but that's for things that only you as a user can access

System locations are for all the users on a machine

I mean: the whole distribution story is not clear

It's not as clear how you're supposed to package your stuff and how people
who receives your stuff are supposed to deal with that

As in many cases, the Guile manual is detailed about properties and
features and way less concerned about use cases (in this regard, I suggest
this talk https://archive.fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/legacy_docs/ )

The assumption is that based on properties and features, you can come up
with a user case that fits your needs yourself

it's a bit of a heavy assumption 🙁

Overall, I'd say this:

There is level 0 of Guile packaging: that's NO packaging. You keep your
files scattered around and they will be autocompiled

You put your files in a git repo on line, your friends will check them out
and autocompile them too

Then there's level 1: when things get a bit more structured, for example
your package may depend on some other Guile library or on a specific
version of Guile

In that case, you need to setup the autotools in your project

Distros such as Ubuntu and Fedora will be able to distribute your package
and your friends on Gentoo will be able to deal with them by hand

In the future, there could be a level 2. That is: no m4 anymore !! As fas
as I undertsand the Autoconf based machinery relies on bash to execute
tests (is such library available ? Is Guile version >= 2.7 ?)

And Guile is perfectly able to substitute bash scripting.

So we could collect a series of common tests used for configuring Guile
packages and implement them in Guile !

That would introduce the assumption that Guile is as widely available as
Bash is and that'd be debatable

But I'd go for that anyway

Wrapping up: yes, 4.6 is good for a mention of guile-hall

But things like 4.7 (and maybe others) will confuse people

it took me years to figure out the Guile distribution story and this email
is a distillate of years of confusion

I'll try to write a mention of guile-hall for the manual and send a patch.

Not right now, though. In the coming days

Thank you Alex for giving me a chance to extend myself on the Guile
distribution story

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> Overall, I'd say this:
>
> There is level 0 of Guile packaging: that's NO packaging. You keep your
> files scattered around and they will be autocompiled
>
> You put your files in a git repo on line, your friends will check them out
> and autocompile them too
>
> Then there's level 1: when things get a bit more structured, for example
> your package may depend on some other Guile library or on a specific
> version of Guile

I’d say that level 1 is when you want you code to be (a) tools that are
pre-compiled and installed systemwide, or (b) libraries that are
available for other Guile code.

That’s when you need autotools.

Then level 2 is when you need other tools. At that point you need some
package management.

> In that case, you need to setup the autotools in your project
>
> Distros such as Ubuntu and Fedora will be able to distribute your package
> and your friends on Gentoo will be able to deal with them by hand
>
> In the future, there could be a level 2. That is: no m4 anymore !! As fas
> as I undertsand the Autoconf based machinery relies on bash to execute
> tests (is such library available ? Is Guile version >= 2.7 ?)

Autoconf is intended to be bootstrappable with minimal dependencies.
It needs some shell. At some point gash might be a suitable option.

m4 is just a very simple templating language. Should not be too hard to
implement it in Guile.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Arne,

Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> writes:

> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Overall, I'd say this:
>>
>> […]
>>
>> There is level 0 of Guile packaging: that's NO packaging. You keep your
>> files scattered around and they will be autocompiled
>> In the future, there could be a level 2. That is: no m4 anymore !! As fas
>> as I undertsand the Autoconf based machinery relies on bash to execute
>> tests (is such library available ? Is Guile version >= 2.7 ?)
>
> Autoconf is intended to be bootstrappable with minimal dependencies.
> It needs some shell. At some point gash might be a suitable option.

Right.  This is what autotools brings to the table right? A super
minimalist, dependable and portable installation process.

Having a fully Guile bootstrap using tools such as gash would be
amazing.  It shouldn't lose us meaningful portability I suppose, because
these tools would work anywhere where Guile works, and we're talking
about distributing Guile libraries & applications in the first place!

> m4 is just a very simple templating language. Should not be too hard
> to implement it in Guile.

Again, this has come up in the past.  I love the idea of having a Guile
way to do the work that m4, autoreconf and automake do — I think any
piecemeal or module work towards this would super valuable.

I hope for now, in the absence of those things existing, having Hall
provide a kludgy bridge between autotools and Guile might be the best of
both worlds…

Cheers,

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> writes:
>> m4 is just a very simple templating language. Should not be too hard
>> to implement it in Guile.
>
> Again, this has come up in the past.  I love the idea of having a Guile
> way to do the work that m4, autoreconf and automake do — I think any
> piecemeal or module work towards this would super valuable.
>
> I hope for now, in the absence of those things existing, having Hall
> provide a kludgy bridge between autotools and Guile might be the best of
> both worlds…

I have yet to use it (I’m still doing the autotools setup by hand; but
that’s mostly because my Guile tools are mostly wisp so I need custom
stuff), but yes: having autotools autogenerated is extremely valuable.

If you have automated autotools setup - something that just works - it’s
like all those project-setup tools other languages have (Java with
Maven, Javascript with npm, Rust with cargo, Go …), but with the
difference that it works everywhere.

I have used several different build tools in the past, and once you
stray even slightly outside the usual path, autotools (with all its
cludginess) still outdoes them all.

Sidenote: Does guile hall setup help for Make?

→ https://hg.sr.ht/~arnebab/conf/browse/Makefile.am?rev=314983dd7beb661ac931aa33a4937bd7cccd30c1#L26
(shows rule lines with ## comments as help output for commands)

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Heya,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> Il giorno dom 17 mag 2020 alle ore 17:35 Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Hey Cato,
>
>  Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
>
>  > […]
>  >
>  > This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough
>  >
>  > Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?
>
>  I guess section '4.6 Using Guile Tools' might be a good place to put it?
>
>  4.5 advetises paredit and geiser — but that is specific to Emacs.  4.6
>  is about guile tools more generally.  So I imagine something like the
>  blurbs about paredit and geiser, but then for hall and in 4.6?
>
>  What do you think?
>
> I'm ok with that
>
> I'm somewhat puzzled by 4.7, it's about installing Guile code.
>
> It mentions system controlled locations (on traditional systems) such as usr/lib/...
>
> it seems it assumes that people install guile object files by hand ?

Right.  I think this strengthens my believe it should go in 4.6.  I
would like new users to be able to get started with Hall, which just
does the right thing (hopefully) in terms of installing files in the
right places.  And then, when the user is ready for it, they can dive
deeper with 4.7.  They can start grokking how load paths & compilation
and the module system works etc.

But as it stands — I remember when I first started out with Guile — this
stuff is confounding!  By now I can see, first class modules are
amazing.  The introspective capabilities of Guile are a dream to work
with; and understanding how these data structures map onto the file
system is really useful.  But it's definitely something that should be
able to be a black box in the beginning!

> On another side, if you have some .scm files scattered around, they
> will be autocompiled and the result will be put into some well hidden
> buried folder in your home folder
>
> […]
>
> it took me years to figure out the Guile distribution story and this
> email is a distillate of years of confusion

Thanks for this write-up.  It is a very useful stab at categorising the
different levels and moving parts involved.  I'm taking all the emails
in this discussion and will be thinking about them in the coming days.
Clearly there *is*, not just a project bootstrapping role for Hall, but
also a distribution/installation story.  Something in between autotools
and file-fiddling and the brutalist beauty of Guix.

> I'll try to write a mention of guile-hall for the manual and send a
> patch.
>
> Not right now, though. In the coming days

Absolutely, thanks for offering!  Happy to give your draft a once over
if you want!

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

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Il giorno dom 17 mag 2020 alle ore 22:48 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

Absolutely, thanks for offering!  Happy to give your draft a once over
> if you want!
>

So, here's the patch

is it leaning a bit too much on the use case illustration ?

Should it be a bit dryer to conform with the rest of the manual ?

[-- Attachment #2: guile-hall.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2211 bytes --]

From b931125e04180305f7728c5f41e42e837974178b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adriano <catonano@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 17:44:15 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] added a reference t guile-hall in the manual

---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 50 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 50 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..dfe298904 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -744,6 +744,56 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@node guile-hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile
+and yet it can be very useful in the common experience of using Guile.
+
+It's @uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, guile-hall}
+
+When you start a new project guile-hall creates a folder
+containing a scaffold of your new project.
+
+In such scaffold the Autotools setup will be already instrumented,
+you don't need to take care of it yourself.
+
+Under the hood, guile-hall uses the Autoconf macros provided by Guile
+so the Autotools setup of your project will be able to test, for example,
+if a certain Guile library is available or if Guile itself is available and
+in which version.
+
+In this way you'll be able to call make to
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+build your project
+@item
+run the unit tests
+@item
+create a distribution package (a .tar.gz file)
+@end itemize
+
+This covers 2 different needs.
+
+On one sie it assists you in working on your project
+by allowing you to conveniently build it and run the unit tests.
+
+On another side, when you're ready it will produce
+a manufact that lends itself to be easily distributed.
+
+GNU/Linux distributions will be able to easily
+distribute your project.
+
+But also people running a distribution that doesn't offer your project yet
+will be able to build and run it, provided they are acquainted with the
+usual process
+
+@example
+./configure
+make
+make install
+@end example
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
-- 
2.25.1

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 56 bytes --]

Ehm

I reshaped the phrasing a bit and corrected a typo

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-added-a-reference-t-guile-hall-in-the-manual.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2431 bytes --]

From 06525320b07b7f8900dd126b128705439afaa109 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adriano <catonano@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 17:44:15 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] added a reference t guile-hall in the manual

---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 55 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 55 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..5215f1578 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -744,6 +744,61 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@node guile-hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile
+and yet it can be very useful in the common experience of using Guile.
+
+It's @uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, guile-hall}
+
+When you start a new project guile-hall creates a folder
+containing a scaffold of your new project.
+
+In such scaffold the Autotools setup will be already instrumented,
+you don't need to take care of it yourself.
+
+In this way you'll be able to call make to
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+build your project
+@item
+run the unit tests
+@item
+create a distribution package (a .tar.gz file)
+@end itemize
+
+This covers 2 different needs.
+
+On one side it assists you in working on your project
+by allowing you to conveniently build it and run the unit tests.
+
+On another side, when you're ready it will produce
+a manufact that lends itself to be easily distributed.
+
+GNU/Linux distributions will be able to easily
+distribute your project.
+
+But also people running a distribution that doesn't offer your project yet
+will be able to build and run it, provided they are acquainted with the
+usual process
+
+@example
+./configure
+make
+make check
+make install
+@end example
+
+Through this process, the configure script of your project will be able to
+check, for example, if a certain Guile library is available or if Guile itself is available and
+in which version.
+
+That's because under the hood guile-hall uses the Autoconf macros provided by Guile.
+
+Also, in this way your project will be able to be conveniently installed on the destination system
+in a way that makes it available to all the users of such system.
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
-- 
2.25.1

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

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Awesome — sorry haven't been able to get to this yet, but hope to be
able to do it in the next day or 2!

Alex

On Wed, 2020-05-20 at 13:45 +0200, Catonano wrote:
> 
> Ehm
> 
> I reshaped the phrasing a bit and corrected a typo

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Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 88 bytes --]

Ok this is the last revision for today
Now I'm gonna do something else, really ! 😀

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-added-a-reference-to-guile-hall-in-the-manual.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2815 bytes --]

From b0354b6292b4b43a4743bb4b4432250d8bf64732 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adriano <catonano@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 17:44:15 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] added a reference to guile-hall in the manual

---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 64 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..e59616590 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ Run the optimizer on a piece of code and print the result.
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble exp
 Disassemble a compiled procedure.
 @end deffn
-
+  
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble-file file
 Disassemble a file.
 @end deffn
@@ -744,6 +744,69 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@menu
+* guile-hall::
+@end menu
+
+
+@node guile-hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile
+and yet it can be very useful in the common experience of using Guile.
+
+It's @uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, guile-hall}
+
+When you start a new project guile-hall creates a folder
+containing a scaffold of your new project.
+
+In such scaffold the Autotools setup will be already instrumented,
+you don't need to take care of it yourself.
+
+In this way you'll be able to call make to
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+build your project
+@item
+run the unit tests
+@item
+create a distribution package (a .tar.gz file)
+@end itemize
+
+This covers 2 different needs.
+
+On one side it assists you in working on your project
+by allowing you to conveniently build it and run the unit tests
+(with @code{make} and @code{make check}).
+
+On another side, when you're ready it will produce
+a manufact that lends itself to be easily distributed
+(with @code{make dist}).
+
+GNU/Linux distributions will be able to easily
+distribute your project.
+
+But also people running a distribution that doesn't offer your project yet
+will be able to build and run it, provided they are acquainted with the
+usual process
+
+@example
+./configure
+make
+make install
+@end example
+
+Through this process, the configure script of your project will be able to
+check, for example, if a certain Guile library is available or if Guile itself is available and
+in which version.
+
+That's because under the hood guile-hall uses the Autoconf macros provided by Guile.
+
+@xref{Autoconf Macros}
+
+Also, in this way your project will be able to be conveniently installed on the destination system
+in a way that makes it available to all the users of such system.
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
-- 
2.25.1

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno mer 20 mag 2020 alle ore 17:58 Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> ha
scritto:

>
>
> Ok this is the last revision for today
> Now I'm gonna do something else, really ! 😀
>


So, today is another day and I have a new update

I'm watching this talk
https://peertube.social/videos/watch/8f27a614-aa63-4811-af6a-b9e11effc399

and it made up my mind that in this patch I'm intermingling reference type
content and tutorial type content

Guile desperately lacks some good tutorial and how to materials

Because, as the person on the video says, programmers tend to assume that
what people want is information

But the solution is not to spray the reference manual with bit of tutorials
here and there

Because, according to the person talking, that decreases the quality of
both reference and tutorials

Today I'm a bit busy but I'll submit a proper patch maybe tomorrow

Thanks

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1259 bytes --]

Heya,

On Thu, 2020-05-21 at 12:00 +0200, Catonano wrote:
> 
> 
> Il giorno mer 20 mag 2020 alle ore 17:58 Catonano <catonano@gmail.com
> > ha scritto:
> > 
> > Ok this is the last revision for today
> > Now I'm gonna do something else, really ! 😀
> > 
> 
> 
> So, today is another day and I have a new update
> 
> I'm watching this talk
> https://peertube.social/videos/watch/8f27a614-aa63-4811-af6a-b9e11effc399
> 
> and it made up my mind that in this patch I'm intermingling reference
> type content and tutorial type content
> 
> Guile desperately lacks some good tutorial and how to materials
> 
> Because, as the person on the video says, programmers tend to assume
> that what people want is information
> 
> But the solution is not to spray the reference manual with bit of
> tutorials here and there
> 
> Because, according to the person talking, that decreases the quality
> of both reference and tutorials
> 
> Today I'm a bit busy but I'll submit a proper patch maybe tomorrow

I think these are very good points.  I think that's where the
difference between the Guix Manual and the Cookbook come from.

The Guile manual is definitely a reference manual! :-)

I'll await your update tomorrow.

Alex


[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 273 bytes --]

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1456 bytes --]

Il giorno gio 21 mag 2020 alle ore 12:03 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Heya,
>
> On Thu, 2020-05-21 at 12:00 +0200, Catonano wrote:
> >
> >
> > Il giorno mer 20 mag 2020 alle ore 17:58 Catonano <catonano@gmail.com
> > > ha scritto:
> > >
> > > Ok this is the last revision for today
> > > Now I'm gonna do something else, really ! 😀
> > >
> >
> >
> > So, today is another day and I have a new update
> >
> > I'm watching this talk
> >
> https://peertube.social/videos/watch/8f27a614-aa63-4811-af6a-b9e11effc399
> >
> > and it made up my mind that in this patch I'm intermingling reference
> > type content and tutorial type content
> >
> > Guile desperately lacks some good tutorial and how to materials
> >
> > Because, as the person on the video says, programmers tend to assume
> > that what people want is information
> >
> > But the solution is not to spray the reference manual with bit of
> > tutorials here and there
> >
> > Because, according to the person talking, that decreases the quality
> > of both reference and tutorials
> >
> > Today I'm a bit busy but I'll submit a proper patch maybe tomorrow
>
> I think these are very good points.  I think that's where the
> difference between the Guix Manual and the Cookbook come from.
>
> The Guile manual is definitely a reference manual! :-)
>
> I'll await your update tomorrow.
>
> Alex
>
>
here we go

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-added-a-reference-to-guile-hall-in-the-manual.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 1498 bytes --]

From b79615f3058225ff086ceef5b3dd6537958b3fcd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adriano <catonano@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 17:44:15 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] added a reference to guile-hall in the manual

---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 21 ++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..a43ab0364 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ Run the optimizer on a piece of code and print the result.
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble exp
 Disassemble a compiled procedure.
 @end deffn
-
+  
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble-file file
 Disassemble a file.
 @end deffn
@@ -744,6 +744,25 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@menu
+* guile-hall::
+@end menu
+
+
+@node guile-hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile
+and yet it can be very useful in the common experience of using Guile.
+
+It's @uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, guile-hall}
+
+When you start a new project guile-hall creates a folder
+containing a scaffold of your new project.
+
+In such scaffold the Autotools setup will be already instrumented,
+you don't need to take care of it yourself.
+
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
-- 
2.25.1

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 506 bytes --]

Hey Catonano,

Sorry it took a bit longer for me to get around to it.

I liked the style of your text.  I've taken the liberty to expand on it
some more — but I'm happy to go with your version if you / the
maintainers prefer.

Also, I changed references from guile-hall to Hall.  Whilst the name of
the folder etc is guile-hall, the project itself is called Hall, or
Guile Hall to make it part of the Guile family :-)

I would love for this section to be added to the Guile manual.

Wdyt?

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: 0001-Added-a-reference-to-Guile-Hall-in-the-manual.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-diff, Size: 1756 bytes --]

From 3f8c9fca63e3ddeb6f051d9d16e0c21b8cce8a30 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alex Sassmannshausen <alex@komputilo.eu>
Date: Sun, 24 May 2020 23:18:32 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Added a reference to Guile Hall in the manual.

* doc/ref/scheme-using.texi: Add a section on Hall.
---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..55ce778d2 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -744,6 +744,30 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@menu
+* Hall::
+@end menu
+
+
+@node Hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile and yet can be very
+useful in your day to day experience with it.  This tool is
+@uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, Hall}.
+
+Hall helps you create, manage and package your Guile projects through a
+simple commandline interface.  When you start a new project, Hall
+creates a folder containing a scaffold of your new project.  It contains
+a directory for your tests, for your libraries, for your scripts and for
+your documentation.  This means you immediately know where to put the
+files you are hacking on.
+
+In addition, the scaffold will include your basic Autotools setup, so
+you don't have to take care of that yourself.  Having Autotools set up
+with your project means you can immediately start hacking on your
+project without worrying about whether your code will work on other
+people's computers.
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
-- 
2.23.0


[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 1556 bytes --]


Alex

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> Il giorno gio 21 mag 2020 alle ore 12:03 Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Heya,
>
>  On Thu, 2020-05-21 at 12:00 +0200, Catonano wrote:
>  > 
>  > 
>  > Il giorno mer 20 mag 2020 alle ore 17:58 Catonano <catonano@gmail.com
>  > > ha scritto:
>  > > 
>  > > Ok this is the last revision for today
>  > > Now I'm gonna do something else, really ! 😀
>  > > 
>  > 
>  > 
>  > So, today is another day and I have a new update
>  > 
>  > I'm watching this talk
>  > https://peertube.social/videos/watch/8f27a614-aa63-4811-af6a-b9e11effc399
>  > 
>  > and it made up my mind that in this patch I'm intermingling reference
>  > type content and tutorial type content
>  > 
>  > Guile desperately lacks some good tutorial and how to materials
>  > 
>  > Because, as the person on the video says, programmers tend to assume
>  > that what people want is information
>  > 
>  > But the solution is not to spray the reference manual with bit of
>  > tutorials here and there
>  > 
>  > Because, according to the person talking, that decreases the quality
>  > of both reference and tutorials
>  > 
>  > Today I'm a bit busy but I'll submit a proper patch maybe tomorrow
>
>  I think these are very good points.  I think that's where the
>  difference between the Guix Manual and the Cookbook come from.
>
>  The Guile manual is definitely a reference manual! :-)
>
>  I'll await your update tomorrow.
>
>  Alex
>
> here we go

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2191 bytes --]

Il giorno dom 24 mag 2020 alle ore 23:22 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hey Catonano,
>

Hi Alex !

Thank you for your review ☺

I liked the style of your text.  I've taken the liberty to expand on it
> some more — but I'm happy to go with your version if you / the
> maintainers prefer.
>

I'd go with my version, if you don't mind


>
> Also, I changed references from guile-hall to Hall.  Whilst the name of
> the folder etc is guile-hall, the project itself is called Hall, or
> Guile Hall to make it part of the Guile family :-)
>

Well, yes, I welcome this suggestion of yours !

The project name is "Hall", not "guile-hall"

Just a few words on why I'd prefer my version

There are 2 sentences in your version that i find debatable

The first one is:
"Hall helps you create, manage and package your Guile projects through a
simple commandline interface"

because there is nothing in Guile that is not meant for usage at the
command line, unfortunately

Also, the Autotools documentation suffers from the same problem of almost
ALL the GNU documentation: it's focused on properties and features and
completely (?) disregards user stories

Because of this reason, if I was a neecomer reading the Guile manual, I
wouldn't be able to associate the "create, manage and package your Guile
project" to the API offered by the Autotools machinery

Such association is not stated anywhere, as far as I can tell

So I'd be confused by such a formulation

The second sentence is:
"without worrying about whether your code will work on other
 people's computers"

I find that this sentence is more of the tutorial type

Finally, in your version the Autotools setup is mentioned as the last thing
introduced by "In addition..."

To me the Autotools setup is not an addition, it's the bread and butter of
Hall. it's the cetral feature !

And it needs to be stated first and foremost !

I wrote a new version (attached here) but it ends up being very similar to
my original one

I would go ith this one or my original one, for the reasons I mentioned

I hope this is not a problem 😯

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-added-a-reference-to-guile-hall-in-the-manual.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 1723 bytes --]

From e3e3cb177aa411a26d927e05e90dd00996721399 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adriano <catonano@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 17:44:15 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] added a reference to guile-hall in the manual

---
 doc/ref/scheme-using.texi | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
index ac265fcca..d430f89e8 100644
--- a/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/scheme-using.texi
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ Run the optimizer on a piece of code and print the result.
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble exp
 Disassemble a compiled procedure.
 @end deffn
-
+  
 @deffn {REPL Command} disassemble-file file
 Disassemble a file.
 @end deffn
@@ -744,10 +744,33 @@ using a CPAN-like system.
 A complete list of guild scripts can be had by invoking @code{guild
 list}, or simply @code{guild}.
 
+@menu
+* Hall::
+@end menu
+
+
+@node guile-hall
+@subsection Bootstrapping projects and distributing them
+
+There's a tool that doesn't come bundled with Guile and yet can be very
+useful in your day to day experience with it.  This tool is
+@uref{https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall, Hall}.
+
+When you start a new project, Hall creates a folder
+containing a scaffold of your new project.
+Such scaffold will include your basic Autotools setup, so
+you don't have to take care of that yourself
+
+The scaffold contains a directory for your tests,
+for your libraries, for your scripts and for
+your documentation. So you immediately know where to put the
+files you are hacking on.
+
 
 @node Installing Site Packages
 @section Installing Site Packages
 
+
 @cindex site
 @cindex site path
 @cindex load path
-- 
2.25.1

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Heya,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:

> Il giorno dom 24 mag 2020 alle ore 23:22 Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Hey Catonano,
>
> Hi Alex !
>
> Thank you for your review ☺
>
>  I liked the style of your text.  I've taken the liberty to expand on it
>  some more — but I'm happy to go with your version if you / the
>  maintainers prefer.
>
> I'd go with my version, if you don't mind

Absolutely, I reread your version and I like it (and I agree with your
points around commandline tools and autotools!).

Below one or two suggestions for typos:

+
+ […]
+Such scaffold will include your basic Autotools setup, so
 ^-- 'This' or 'Such a'
+you don't have to take care of that yourself
                          missing full stop -^


Thanks for your proposal!

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno lun 25 mag 2020 alle ore 09:13 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Heya,
>
> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Il giorno dom 24 mag 2020 alle ore 23:22 Alex Sassmannshausen <
> alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> >  Hey Catonano,
> >
> > Hi Alex !
> >
> > Thank you for your review ☺
> >
> >  I liked the style of your text.  I've taken the liberty to expand on it
> >  some more — but I'm happy to go with your version if you / the
> >  maintainers prefer.
> >
> > I'd go with my version, if you don't mind
>
> Absolutely, I reread your version and I like it (and I agree with your
> points around commandline tools and autotools!).
>
> Below one or two suggestions for typos:
>
> +
> + […]
> +Such scaffold will include your basic Autotools setup, so
>  ^-- 'This' or 'Such a'
> +you don't have to take care of that yourself
>                           missing full stop -^
>
>
>
Thab you Alex, your corrections applied

May I ask you (or anyone else) to suggest me a correct git log line ?

I can't remember how to edit that

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno lun 25 mag 2020 alle ore 09:51 Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> ha
scritto:

>
> May I ask you (or anyone else) to suggest me a correct git log line ?
>
> I can't remember how to edit that
>

for the sake of completeness, the patch is here
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00026.html

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

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

> From 3f8c9fca63e3ddeb6f051d9d16e0c21b8cce8a30 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Alex Sassmannshausen <alex@komputilo.eu>
> Date: Sun, 24 May 2020 23:18:32 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] Added a reference to Guile Hall in the manual.
>
> * doc/ref/scheme-using.texi: Add a section on Hall.

I finally pushed a slightly modified variant of this patch:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?id=f55740f0cd31e125dfd267a5be36373b14365793

Thank you Alex & Catonano!

Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno mer 27 mag 2020 alle ore 22:52 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
scritto:

> Hello!
>
> Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> > From 3f8c9fca63e3ddeb6f051d9d16e0c21b8cce8a30 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: Alex Sassmannshausen <alex@komputilo.eu>
> > Date: Sun, 24 May 2020 23:18:32 +0200
> > Subject: [PATCH] Added a reference to Guile Hall in the manual.
> >
> > * doc/ref/scheme-using.texi: Add a section on Hall.
>
> I finally pushed a slightly modified variant of this patch:
>
>
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?id=f55740f0cd31e125dfd267a5be36373b14365793
>
> Thank you Alex & Catonano!
>
> Ludo’.
>

Thank you Ludo !!

May I ask you why you preferred this version ?

Alex and I had agreed on a different bersion

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:

> Thank you Ludo !!
>
> May I ask you why you preferred this version ?
>
> Alex and I had agreed on a different bersion

This was a long thread, so perhaps I picked the wrong one, sorry!

What do you think should be added or reworded?  I’m happy to fix it.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno gio 28 mag 2020 alle ore 14:32 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
scritto:

> Hi,
>
> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> > Thank you Ludo !!
> >
> > May I ask you why you preferred this version ?
> >
> > Alex and I had agreed on a different bersion
>
> This was a long thread, so perhaps I picked the wrong one, sorry!
>

It was a bit long indeed ☺


> What do you think should be added or reworded?  I’m happy to fix it.
>

It's here !
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00026.html

you should have it somewhere in your inbox already !

Thank you ! 😄

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:

>> What do you think should be added or reworded?  I’m happy to fix it.
>>
>
> It's here !
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00026.html

Thank you.  It’s more concise than what I committed.

What’s your suggestion exactly?  Do you think the version in master is
too verbose?

Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno gio 28 mag 2020 alle ore 17:54 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
scritto:

> Hi,
>
> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> >> What do you think should be added or reworded?  I’m happy to fix it.
> >>
> >
> > It's here !
> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00026.html
>
> Thank you.  It’s more concise than what I committed.
>
> What’s your suggestion exactly?  Do you think the version in master is
> too verbose?
>

I explained my reasons to Alex and he agreed with them

You can read my reasons here
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2020-05/msg00094.html

As for what I'm suggesting: I'm suggesting to create a new commit in which
you scrap the current text and you paste our version

If you want I can do that for you and send a new patch ☺

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Catonano,

Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:

> Il giorno gio 28 mag 2020 alle ore 17:54 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
> scritto:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> skribis:
>>
>> >> What do you think should be added or reworded?  I’m happy to fix it.
>> >>
>> >
>> > It's here !
>> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00026.html
>>
>> Thank you.  It’s more concise than what I committed.
>>
>> What’s your suggestion exactly?  Do you think the version in master is
>> too verbose?
>>
>
> I explained my reasons to Alex and he agreed with them
>
> You can read my reasons here
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2020-05/msg00094.html
>
> As for what I'm suggesting: I'm suggesting to create a new commit in which
> you scrap the current text and you paste our version

I’m sorry, I won’t do that.  The arguments in the message you reference
above are not compelling to me; I fail to see what’s wrong with the
current text.

Apologies for not following the discussion closely enough.  I’m
personally willing to move on now, but really, I think the outcome is good.

Thanks again for pushing this change!

Ludo’.

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Catonano]

Il giorno ven 29 mag 2020 alle ore 10:27 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ha
scritto:


> I’m sorry, I won’t do that.  The arguments in the message you reference
> above are not compelling to me; I fail to see what’s wrong with the
> current text.
>
> Apologies for not following the discussion closely enough.  I’m
> personally willing to move on now, but really, I think the outcome is good.
>
> Thanks again for pushing this change!
>

I would have preferred my formulation, but that's a detail

Overall, the fact that the manual explicitly mentions Guile Hall i progress

Carry on !! 😃

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

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Thank you both for bringing Hall to the Guile manual.  I now look
forward to making the next release :-)

Cheers,

Alex

On Fri, 2020-05-29 at 11:09 +0200, Catonano wrote:
> Il giorno ven 29 mag 2020 alle ore 10:27 Ludovic Courtès <
> ludo@gnu.org> ha scritto:
>  
> > I’m sorry, I won’t do that.  The arguments in the message you
> > reference
> > above are not compelling to me; I fail to see what’s wrong with the
> > current text.
> > 
> > Apologies for not following the discussion closely enough.  I’m
> > personally willing to move on now, but really, I think the outcome
> > is good.
> > 
> > Thanks again for pushing this change!
> 
> I would have preferred my formulation, but that's a detail
> 
> Overall, the fact that the manual explicitly mentions Guile Hall i
> progress
> 
> Carry on !! 😃

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Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Christopher Lemmer Webber]

Catonano writes:

> Now, I like to remind that Ludo had proposed to _mention_ guile-hall in the
> guix.texi manual !!
>
> Here:
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2018-07/msg00002.html
>
> "I think we should advertise it widely"
>
> I wholeheartedly agree
>
> This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough
>
> Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?

The comparative frustration I had with having to use autotools for
simple guile projects vs when I was developing in Racket was one of the
things that came up in my FOSDEM talk last year.  I didn't know that in
my absence Guile Hall came to be, though people told me later.

I'm excited that Guile Hall has reduced this overhead considerably, so I
agree with all the above.  That's all to say, thank you Alex for working
on one of the most important problems in Guile!  This is great!

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hi Chris,

Hark the wanderer from remote lands returns!  It's nice to have you back
in Guileland :-)

In all seriousness thoug, I think it's really valuable to gain
experiences in different ecosystems and environments and then seeing how
those experiences can grow our community.  I like your insights on
functional hashtables for instance!

Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> writes:

> Catonano writes:
>
>> Now, I like to remind that Ludo had proposed to _mention_ guile-hall in the
>> guix.texi manual !!
>>
>> Here:
>> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2018-07/msg00002.html
>>
>> "I think we should advertise it widely"
>>
>> I wholeheartedly agree
>>
>> This is an important step in making the Guile user experience less rough
>>
>> Where, in the manual, should such mention be placed ?
>
> The comparative frustration I had with having to use autotools for
> simple guile projects vs when I was developing in Racket was one of the
> things that came up in my FOSDEM talk last year.  I didn't know that in
> my absence Guile Hall came to be, though people told me later.

This is a repeating story.  And it's an interesting one, because I can
really relate to it.  Autotools feels so arcane and has a massively
steep learning curve.  And for people who just want to get on and code
in an awesome language (like Guile), it is hard to argue that learning
autotools is worth the effort.

And yet it, I take it from people more knowledgeable in the matter than
I, it also gives us a lot: when a project is set up to work with
autotools, it will be deployable anywhere Guile and autotools can run.
And that's a pretty nice guarantee I suppose.

> I'm excited that Guile Hall has reduced this overhead considerably, so
> I agree with all the above.

And this is exactly what Hall is supposed to do.

Currently I kind of envision 'the right thing' (as opposed to 'the good
enough thing'), in terms of packaging, autotools + Guix.  And I have
always considered Hall to be something that does not seek to replace
either with simpler things, but to make it easy for people to do the
right thing.

Much like Emacs teaches people Lisp by stealth, just because people
start tweaking their init files; and Guix turns users into contributors
by blurring the line between configuration and development; so I would
like Hall to guide people from 'first steps in Guile' to participant in
the community & user of Emacs & Guix.

> That's all to say, thank you Alex for working on one of the most
> important problems in Guile!  This is great!

Thank you for the kind words :-)

Alex

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Jérémy Korwin-Zmijowski]

Hi !

Thank you Alex and all the contributors !

This tool is a must. The Guix feature is awesome.
Can't wait to try this release for my projects yeah !

Let's spread some Guile hacks hahaha !
Jérémy

Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Nala Ginrut]

Thanks for the work!
I'd like to use it in my next project, and introduce it in my new book.

Best regards.


On Sat, May 16, 2020, 23:42 Alex Sassmannshausen <
alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have the pleasure to announce that I have today released Guile Hall
> 0.3.0.
>
> You can get a tarball (that requires autoreconf) at
> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/-/releases.
>
> You can also install it with the latest Guix (from a3dfe05285):
> $ guix install guile-hall
>
> You can check the source code, and report issues at
> https://gitlab.com/a-sassmannshausen/guile-hall/.
>
> I would like to thank the following people, who have all contributed
> issues, thougts or code.
>
>     Stephen Scheck <singularsyntax@gmail.com>
>     Jose A. Ortega Ruiz <jao@gnu.org>
>     Jack Hill <jackhill@jackhill.us>
>     Adriano Peluso <catonano@gmail.com>
>
> Release notes below, under * Changes in 0.3 (since 0.2.1).
>
> * From the README file
>
> Hall aims to provide a black box that "just works" (tm), so that you
> can create, develop, build & distribute Guile projects.
>
> With Hall you will be able to:
> - Manage a Guile project hierarchy from one project spec file.
> - Transparently support the GNU build system for maximum portability.
> - Leverage tight coupling to Guix for reliability & confidence.
> - Profit.
>
> This README is all written documentation that currently exists.  The
> project must be considered Alpha software at this stage.
>
> Nonetheless, all commands and arguments are documented, and passing
> the -h flag to any command or sub-command should provide you with some
> guidance.  In addition all procedures in the codebase are documented
> with docstrings.
>
> * Changes in 0.3 (since 0.2.1)
>
> ** Allow adding single files to hall.scm using `hall scan'
>
>    `hall scan' now accepts two optional arguments so that you can quickly
> add
>    individual files to your hall.scm file, even if your project state is
>    dirty.  This is an alternative to running the full auto-magic `hall
> scan'
>    command.
>
> ** Emit user friendly error messages for common failures
>
>    Hitherto we simply used `throw' to error out of unexpected situations.
>    This would happen even in the case of user error or predictable
> situations.
>
>    I consider the codebase solid enough to emit more user-friendly error
>    messages in predictable situations.
>
> ** Allow use of fully-fledged regexp to --skip files
>
>    The `scan' and `clean' subcommands accept a --skip keyword to exclude
>    specific (classes of) files from their operation.  So far they had to be
>    precise files.  The --skip keyword now expects Guile style regex pattern
>    strings for increased flexibility.
>
> ** Add a notes system for giving advice to the user
>
>    Hall aims to understand your project and the files it contains, even if
> it
>    does not fully support your use case.  To this end, its architecture
>    creates a representation of your project in the hall.scm file.
>
>    Hall now has a facility for emitting useful commentary when creating or
>    manipulating this representation.
>
>    A current case in point at present is that we understand that Guile
>    projects may include C files — but Hall does not support them in its
> build
>    infrastructure.  So we want to allow & support users who include C
> files,
>    but we want to warn them about Hall's short-comings in this area.
>
> ** Change the filetype architecture
>
>    So far, filetype registration code was spread out over the codebase.
> From
>    this version we support a simple <filetype> interface.  Supported
> filetypes
>    are declared in /hall/spec.scm.
>
>    Supporting more filetypes is as easy as adding a simple declaration
> there.
>
>    This sets up a further development allowing individual projects to
> specify
>    filetypes above and beyond Hall's built-in filetypes.
>
> ** Support XML, C, .log, .trs, .tex, & emacs autosave/backup files
>
>    A simple development thanks to the above.
>
> ** Add a default .gitignore file
>
>    Hall has strong opinions about development, primarily to stop new
>    developers from having to make bewildering choices.  Currently it pushes
>    strong git & guix integration, as well as a specific documentation and
>    folder structure.  As such we now add a standard .gitignore file that
>    should cover the vast majority of use cases.
>
>