Re: Idea: a meta language for (language) build systems - npm, Racket, Rust cargo

[Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen@fastmail.net>]

Hi Pjotr,

> I have a feeling they won't be that interested ;).

Depends on who and when. My idea is not to send them a mail saying,
"look, we have a great idea, you should us it!". It's rather to open
issues on their build systems to suggest features and actually help with
the implementations. Good old proselytism ;-) It's a long-term strategy,
not a quick fix project.

> Industry appears to go the other way. There are several initiatives to
> speed up Rust through caching and storing compiled items in the
> cloud(?!).

Then it's time to intervene before it's too late ;-)

There is a clear momentum building up for reproducibility. Few people
argue nowadays that it doesn't matter. It's more like "would be nice,
but it's too difficult/complicated". That's where Guix can help: as a
demonstration of possibility. And once your builds are reproducible,
you can safely cache them in the cloud!

The next message to get across is the need for cross-language build
systems. The idea of one language, one platform doesn't work any more.
Real software systems need to mix languages, even runtimes. And it's not
just X + C any more either. Again, Guix serves as the proof of concept,
even for people who dislike some specific implementation aspect of Guix.

Cheers,
  Konrad.