OCaml 5.0 and Guix

OCaml 5.0 and Guix

[pukkamustard]

Hello Guix,

A new major release of OCaml (5.0) is planned and I've started some work
of packaging it in Guix:

https://inqlab.net/git/guix.git/log/?h=wip-ocaml-5.0

This currently includes:

- The OCaml 5.0.0-alpha1 compiler
- A `package-with-ocaml5.0` transformation
- Some custom ocaml5.0 packages (mostly unreleased versions with fixes
  for OCaml 5.0)
- The eio effects based IO library (ocaml-eio): eio is designed around
  capability-based security and might be of interest to Scheme hackers
  who are following the work on projects such as Spritely.

Still very much WIP, but a way to give OCaml 5.0 with multicore support
a try.

Best regards,
pukkamustard

Re: OCaml 5.0 and Guix

[zimoun]

Hi,

On lun., 26 sept. 2022 at 10:11, pukkamustard <pukkamustard@posteo.net> wrote:

> A new major release of OCaml (5.0) is planned and I've started some work
> of packaging it in Guix:
>
> https://inqlab.net/git/guix.git/log/?h=wip-ocaml-5.0

Cool!


> Still very much WIP, but a way to give OCaml 5.0 with multicore support
> a try.

What is the status of OCaml bootstrapping for this new version?

Can we have a chain from camlboot -> OCaml 4.07 -> ?? -> v5.0?


Cheers,
simon

Re: OCaml 5.0 and Guix

[pukkamustard]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

>> Still very much WIP, but a way to give OCaml 5.0 with multicore support
>> a try.
>
> What is the status of OCaml bootstrapping for this new version?

Currently 5.0 is not bootstrapped with camlboot.

> Can we have a chain from camlboot -> OCaml 4.07 -> ?? -> v5.0?

That would be very nice! I don't know what the chain would look like. Do
we need to go trough all versions up to 4.14 to compile 5.0 or can 4.09
compile 5.0?

From what I understand, currently only OCaml 4.07 is bootstrapped with
camlboot in Guix. I think Julien has done some work towards
bootstrapping 4.09 (https://github.com/Ekdohibs/camlboot/issues/59).

Also just read this comment
(https://github.com/Ekdohibs/camlboot/issues/1#issuecomment-452905768):

>  As I said on IRC (repeating it here for the record), the idea is to
> replace the interpreter written in OCaml by one written in C. That
> way, it is possible to use all the primitives of the runtime for free.
> I am still unsure as to what I should do for the parsing, since
> several options are possible. It probably needs more thinking.

Sounds like a job for Guile with some C interop and PEGs? :)

Cheers,
pukkamustard

Re: OCaml 5.0 and Guix

[zimoun]

Hi,

On Tue, 27 Sep 2022 at 06:57, pukkamustard <pukkamustard@posteo.net> wrote:

>> What is the status of OCaml bootstrapping for this new version?
>
> Currently 5.0 is not bootstrapped with camlboot.

My question is: what does 5.0 require to compile?  Against which
previous OCaml version, is it possible to compile OCaml 5.0?


>> Can we have a chain from camlboot -> OCaml 4.07 -> ?? -> v5.0?
>
> That would be very nice! I don't know what the chain would look like. Do
> we need to go trough all versions up to 4.14 to compile 5.0 or can 4.09
> compile 5.0?

This is my question. :-)  I am not following closely enough the OCaml
development.  Well, I thought you knew what previous features is
required to compile next compiler. :-)


> From what I understand, currently only OCaml 4.07 is bootstrapped with
> camlboot in Guix. I think Julien has done some work towards
> bootstrapping 4.09 (https://github.com/Ekdohibs/camlboot/issues/59).

From what I understand based on [1], yes only OCaml 4.07 is bootstrapped
with camlboot – this is currently used in Guix.  Somehow the resulting
OCaml 4.07 is considered as “trusted” and I am not sure there is some
plan to upgrade camlboot to support more recent OCaml; at least not in
the short term, maybe I have misunderstood.

1: <https://10years.guix.gnu.org/static/slides/08-courant.pdf>


Cheers,
simon