Re: chicken scheme

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

John J Foerch <jjfoerch@earthlink.net> skribis:

> I have just learned about 'guix import', and have the thought that a
> package importer would be the better way to go.  Eventually I would like
> to package software that I've written in CHICKEN for GuixSD, and only a
> package importer would make that feasible.

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 8:11 AM, John J Foerch <jjfoerch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> First a question about /var/lib, and please excuse the newbie question.
>> If chicken extensions were installed to /var/lib, wouldn't that go
>> against the spirit of guix of keeping every program isolated?  Isn't
>> /var/lib global state?
>
> Yes, but this program is not Guix. It's a completely separate package
> manager, and it should work as intended.

Agreed.  So I think there are two issues at hand:

  1. How to arrange our ‘chicken’ package so that ‘chicken-install’
     works as intended.

  2. How to import Eggs so that they can be first-class Guix packages.

#2, which means writing an importer, is definitely the most profitable
approach: It’s best as a user to have all the packages managed by the
same tool, especially if that provides isolation, transactional upgrades
and rollbacks, etc.

#1 is useful for CHICKEN users who are used to ‘chicken-install’
(similarly pip, npm, etc. are supposed to work.)  It should work in the
same way as on other distros.  I’ve never used it though, so I can’t
give precise advice.

Thanks,
Ludo’.