From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Konrad Hinsen Subject: Re: On DSLs Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2019 11:26:29 +0100 Message-ID: References: <87mudrxvs8.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> <87mudd59ho.fsf@gnu.org> <877e4glyc3.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> <87v9rxx8ri.fsf@gnu.org> <87d0e4oy51.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> <878sop6icq.fsf@gnu.org> <87d0drscng.fsf@gnu.org> <87mucm4iyp.fsf@gnu.org> <877e3narto.fsf_-_@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:55262) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1ic5Oh-0003WA-NN for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Dec 2019 05:27:13 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ic5Of-0005Bq-2b for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Dec 2019 05:27:10 -0500 In-Reply-To: <877e3narto.fsf_-_@gnu.org> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hi Ludo, >> For better illustration, I'll try to rewrite my own manifests in the >> way I'd like to be able to write them. That's probably more useful >> than theory (a tough statement to make for a theoretician ;-) > > Agreed! Just to be clear: I actually intend to implement some infrastructure to make this happen, so this will take a while. One of my convictions after decades in computational science is that ideas without implementations should not be discussed extensively, so I try to live by my own standards ;-) > That=E2=80=99s not true. In some cases, people write something that=E2= =80=99s actually > code (in YAML, in JSON, etc.) and there=E2=80=99s an interpreter running = it. I have been fortunate enough not to have seen such things yet! > IOW, I think you can have a declarative _style_ in a full-blown > language, like: Definitely, and that's what I am aiming for. There remains the security issue of malevolent power users sneaking in innocuous-looking non-declarative code that non-expert users might run without suspicion. But I'd say we can make a lot of progress by having declarative style for all routine configuration data. > This is just to say that we should not conflate the style and the > language. I think what we care about is supporting a declarative style, > and making it expressive enough that people don=E2=80=99t feel the need to > resort to complicated code. Exactly! Cheers, Konrad.