Re: chicken scheme

[John J Foerch <jjfoerch@earthlink.net>]

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.

--
John Foerch