Re: chicken scheme

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

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

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> It installs all extensions to a single system-wide directory, with one
> path component that gives the binary version.  On my debian machine,
> that is /var/lib/chicken/7 (for chicken 4.10.0).  In that way, it is
> simpler than something like npm.

Right.  So to address #1, we should make sure it uses /var/lib, as
discussed earlier.

Thanks,
Ludo’.