Re: Guix Without Scheme

[Munyoki Kilyungi <me@bonfacemunyoki.com>]

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Hi Csepp!

Csepp <raingloom@riseup.net> anaandika:

> jgart <jgart@dismail.de> writes:
>
>> Hi Guixers,
>>
>> I just wanted to share this presentation that Singpolyma gave titled "Guix Without Scheme":
>>
>> https://archive.org/details/singpolyma-guix-without-scheme
>>
>> Through the course of the presentation, singpolyma demos how to build
>> a Guix package with javascript as well as lua.
>>
>> What do people think of leveraging Guile's compiler tower to write Guix
>> packages in lua, javascript, python, and other languages? 
>>
>> nix perhaps? Might be meta fun to write a Guix package in a guile implemented nix frontend.
>>
>> Maybe we should think of Scheme as just one frontend among many to Guile's compiler tower?
>>
>> Is it a future goal for Guix to fully support this unique feature?
>>
>> all best,
>>
>> jgart
>
> I like Lua but this doesn't seem to be a wise use of developer
> resources.  Those languages have subtle differences that would surface
> if this idea was pursued further.  The most obvious one: Scheme is very
> permissive with what you can name your variables, while all the others
> basically follow C's restrictions.  How would you map those names?  It
> is not possible to create a bijection between sets of different
> cardinality.  And then we haven't gotten into how the module systems are
> different or how record systems aren't even standardized among Schemes.
>
> If you want to experiment with mixing languages, Racket is likely a
> better starting point.
>

Using other languages, if simple enough, would be
a nice way to have developers who fear the parens
dip their toe in GNU Guix using Guile.  Nice for
intro workshops/talks - maybe.

That said - and from a very biased view - I think
Scheme is simple enough for anyone, and outside
hobby or exploratory programming, should be
primarily used for GNU Guix hacking.  Perhaps,
over time that may change.

-- 
(Life is like a pencil that will surely run out,
    but will leave the beautiful writing of life.)
(D4F09EB110177E03C28E2FE1F5BBAE1E0392253F
    (hkp://keys.gnupg.net))

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