From: Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>
To: zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Guix Workflow Language ?
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2018 02:57:26 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87lgggrtvd.fsf@elephly.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJ3okZ3jvyLZ0pncKiw5e+qF8UYaS22D1eSy4LeFT2y-fUzypg@mail.gmail.com>
zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:
> Currently, GWL is the strongest available about env/deps management.
> However, Lisp is not mainstream, especially with Bio* and few
> pieces/workflow are already available.
Well, things can change. Did you know that Ross Ihaka of GNU R fame has
been thinking out loud about a Lisp system as a successor to R?
See https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/%7Eihaka/downloads/Compstat-2008.pdf
and https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/%7Eihaka/downloads/JSM-2010.pdf
A lisp dialect is used in one of the most impressive editors, and lispy
languages have seen something of a renaissance with Clojure (also check
out Kawa), the rise of Racket, and possibly the appearance of Guix ;)
It’s not mainstream *yet*, but what becomes mainstream is really
determined by users who demonstrate that the tool is up to the task.
> From my point of view, GWL is two sides:
> - the Guix Workflow, the engine of worklows which is already awesome !!
> - the Workflow Language, the lisp EDSL which is hard to buy for the
> non-lispers.
The two are closely linked. Workflows in the GWL are described as
Scheme values, exactly as packages in Guix are Scheme values. What
emerges from these linked values is a graph. In the case of Guix that’s
a huge network of software, whereas in the GWL the graph is an
executable workflow.
> Last, I do not understand how 2 workflow engines can co-exist. It is
> error-prone and a spaghetti plate that I will not eat. :-)
The GWL describes the relations between processes as workflows. An
execution engine then makes sense of workflows, e.g. by running its
processes on a cluster, spawning individual processes in isolated
environments (“containers!”), pre-processing the data inputs
(e.g. fetching files from a data repository or checking for staleness),
… these things are really independent of the workflows themselves.
But you really do need to have that network of processes first, and
that’s what the GWL builds up as a live datastructure from Scheme
values. And that’s why it’s much less useful to try to compile a CWL
definition to the GWL — you’d lose most of the features the GWL can
provide.
> Happy FOSDEM !! (for people who are going)
> Hope that nice ideas will be discussed during the GWL session. :-)
I’ll be there and ready for a chat :)
--
Ricardo
GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6 2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-01-30 1:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-01-24 14:25 Guix Workflow Language ? zimoun
2018-01-24 20:07 ` Roel Janssen
2018-01-25 16:16 ` zimoun
2018-01-25 20:36 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2018-01-25 22:04 ` Roel Janssen
2018-01-25 22:23 ` Cook, Malcolm
2018-01-26 13:05 ` Pjotr Prins
2018-01-29 16:55 ` zimoun
2018-01-30 1:57 ` Ricardo Wurmus [this message]
2018-02-15 17:28 ` zimoun
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