Re: Guix Without Scheme

[Csepp <raingloom@riseup.net>]

Munyoki Kilyungi <me@bonfacemunyoki.com> writes:

> [[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]]
> 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.

For non-sexpy programming we already have different syntaxes for Scheme,
like Wisp.  Those don't change the semantics of the language though.