Re: Implementing the guix-dameon in Guile

[Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>]

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Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@debian.org> writes:

> On 2023-09-13, Christopher Baines wrote:
>> I think this has been talked about for a while [1], but I want to make it
>> happen. Currently the guix-daemon is still similar to the nix-daemon
>> that it was forked from, and is implemented in C++. I think that a Guile
>> implementation of the guix-daemon will simplify Guix and better support
>> hacking on and around the daemon to add new features and move Guix
>> forward.
>>
>> 1: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/ROADMAP.org#n71
> ...
>> Let me know if you've got any comments or questions!
>
> Sounds great!
>
> My only real concern, as someone maintaining guix packages in Debian, is
> to make sure that we do not break compatibility with being able to use
> an older daemon, as Debian stable/bookworm is still at guix 1.4.x and it
> would be nice to not have to force people to manually upgrade the daemon
> (e.g. and even if a newer version lands in a future Debian stable
> release, in general it will stuck using that version for some years as
> well).
>
> I have noticed occasional issues with the Debian packages of guix having
> compatibility issues when newer versions of guile-git/libgit2,
> guile-ssh/libssh2, etc. get introduced, and wonder if the same would
> hold true of a daemon?
>
> In Guix, by design you wouldn't really notice these sorts of problems as
> it is always generally built with the current version, but Debian does
> rely on ABI compatibility for package upgrades... I might be able to
> keep better track of these types of issues in Debian, although various
> guile-* modules that depend on C libraries seem to avoid the normal
> detection mechanisms to trigger rebuilds in Debian.
>
> That is a bit of a tangent, but it reminded me about that issue...

I think compatibility is a priority, and although I haven't looked too
much in to the details yet, I think it's quite realistic.

I think it's very important for Guix to keep compatibility with older
daemons, and on the daemon side, I'd want to see the Guile
implementation work with older Guix's, as well as it being possible to
switch back and forth between the implementations without issue.

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