Re: [ANN] Guile Hall 0.3.0 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com>]

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