bug#64586: Emacs-Packages should contain native-compiled files

bug#64586: Emacs-Packages should contain native-compiled files

[Mekeor Melire]

Emacs can interpret/load at least four kinds of source files. 
Listed with increasing performance:

- Emacs-Lisp source code: *.el
- Byte-compiled Emacs-Lisp: *.elc
- Native-compiled Emacs-Lisp: *.eln
- Shared-object files: *.so

Guix installs el- and elc-files into ~/.guix-profile/share/emacs/site-lisp which is added to the 
environment-variable EMACSLOADPATH. eln-files are installed into 
~/.guix-profile/lib/emacs/native-site-lisp which is added to 
EMACSNATIVELOADPATH. For Emacs-related so-files, Guix currently 
does not have any convention; see 
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/63987>.

If I understand correctly, it is only the following Emacs-packages that ship with eln-files when installed with Guix, because they specify `#:emacs ,emacs` in the package declaration, so that native-compilation is available during build-time which is used if it's available: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/guix/build/emacs-utils.scm?h=6d0b3684628fe24555055d4a97d703a1b0b59660#n144

    emacs-auctex
    emacs-citeproc-el
    emacs-zig-mode
    emacs-flycheck-grammalecte
    emacs-sudo-edit
    emacs-elquery
    emacs-cov
    emacs-pos-tip
    emacs-posframe
    emacs-xelb
    emacs-exwm
    emacs-xelb-no-x-toolkit
    emacs-exwm-no-x-toolkit
    emacs-exwm-x
    emacs-jabber
    emacs-ement
    emacs-circe
    emacs-esxml
    emacs-nov-el
    emacs-wordgen
    emacs-picpocket
    emacs-lsp-mode
    emacs-jsdoc
    emacs-tramp
    emacs-elpher
    emacs-telega

So, if my understanding is correct, and assuming that we want to ship eln-files, Emacs-packages should all be built with a package of Emacs that supports native-compilation.

bug#64586: Emacs-Packages should contain native-compiled files

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Hi Mekeor,

Am Mittwoch, dem 12.07.2023 um 18:19 +0000 schrieb Mekeor Melire:
> If I understand correctly, it is only the following Emacs-packages
> that ship with eln-files when installed with Guix, because they
> specify `#:emacs ,emacs` in the package declaration, so that native-
> compilation is available during build-time which is used if it's
> available:
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/guix/build/emacs-utils.scm?h=6d0b3684628fe24555055d4a97d703a1b0b59660#n144
> 
>     emacs-auctex
>     emacs-citeproc-el
>     emacs-zig-mode
>     emacs-flycheck-grammalecte
>     emacs-sudo-edit
>     emacs-elquery
>     emacs-cov
>     emacs-pos-tip
>     emacs-posframe
>     emacs-xelb
>     emacs-exwm
>     emacs-xelb-no-x-toolkit
>     emacs-exwm-no-x-toolkit
>     emacs-exwm-x
>     emacs-jabber
>     emacs-ement
>     emacs-circe
>     emacs-esxml
>     emacs-nov-el
>     emacs-wordgen
>     emacs-picpocket
>     emacs-lsp-mode
>     emacs-jsdoc
>     emacs-tramp
>     emacs-elpher
>     emacs-telega
> 
> So, if my understanding is correct, and assuming that we want to ship
> eln-files, Emacs-packages should all be built with a package of Emacs
> that supports native-compilation.
You are correct, but unlike other language ecosystems (e.g. Python or
Common Lisp), we don't have a convenient "package-with-emacs" as of
yet.  This is basically step 3 of <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/63984#0>
of which only step 1 has been concluded so far.  (In fact, I need to
merge 29.0.92 into emacs-team, but that shouldn't be as difficult as
the rest in there.)  If you want things to happen faster, just tag your
patches with emacs-team and we will review them :)

Cheers

bug#64586: Emacs-Packages should contain native-compiled files

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,

On Wed, 12 Jul 2023 at 21:36, Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:

> You are correct, but unlike other language ecosystems (e.g. Python or
> Common Lisp), we don't have a convenient "package-with-emacs" as of
> yet.  This is basically step 3 of <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/63984#0>
> of which only step 1 has been concluded so far.  (In fact, I need to
> merge 29.0.92 into emacs-team, but that shouldn't be as difficult as
> the rest in there.)  If you want things to happen faster, just tag your
> patches with emacs-team and we will review them :)

Just to point that a kind of ’package-with-emacs’ had been discussed in
#41732 [1] and my current understanding is that some corner cases are
annoying.

Emacs packages use 3 variants for “compiling“: emacs-minimal, emacs-no-x
and emacs; see #:emacs in arguments field.

(And I let aside emacs-no-x-toolkit. :-))

Therefore, it does not appear to me easy to have some generic
package-with-emacs for rewriting the “compiler” of the Emacs packages.
Somehow, a profile containing Emacs packages has these packages not
necessary built with the same Emacs build-system compiler but still work
together; contrary to Python, Common Lisp, OCaml or others.

And I do not know what could be an handy way to declare Emacs package
variants.  Any idea?

1: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/41732

Cheers,
simon

bug#64586: Emacs-Packages should contain native-compiled files

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch, dem 23.08.2023 um 17:37 +0200 schrieb Simon Tournier:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 12 Jul 2023 at 21:36, Liliana Marie Prikler
> <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > You are correct, but unlike other language ecosystems (e.g. Python
> > or Common Lisp), we don't have a convenient "package-with-emacs" as
> > of yet.  This is basically step 3 of <
> > https://issues.guix.gnu.org/63984#0>
> > of which only step 1 has been concluded so far.  (In fact, I need
> > to merge 29.0.92 into emacs-team, but that shouldn't be as
> > difficult as the rest in there.)  If you want things to happen
> > faster, just tag your patches with emacs-team and we will review
> > them :)
> 
> Just to point that a kind of ’package-with-emacs’ had been discussed
> in #41732 [1] and my current understanding is that some corner cases
> are annoying.
The plan would have been to address those, but we were caught with our
panties down and are behind the latest Emacs release.  Oh well, guess
those nice things have to be delayed a little longer.

> Emacs packages use 3 variants for “compiling“: emacs-minimal, emacs-
> no-x and emacs; see #:emacs in arguments field.
> 
> (And I let aside emacs-no-x-toolkit. :-))
> 
> Therefore, it does not appear to me easy to have some generic
> package-with-emacs for rewriting the “compiler” of the Emacs
> packages.  Somehow, a profile containing Emacs packages has these
> packages not necessary built with the same Emacs build-system
> compiler but still work together; contrary to Python, Common Lisp,
> OCaml or others.
I don't think there'd be that many cases to consider.  You can either
adjust #:emacs (when using emacs-build-system) or you have it as
native-input (when using any other build system).  For both cases, you
can add some logic to make that emacs the one used as the argument to
the hypothetical package-with-emacs function.

> And I do not know what could be an handy way to declare Emacs package
> variants.  Any idea?
I'd have to investigate that myself.  My basic idea would have been to
copy what Common Lisp is doing and introduce consistent naming, i.e.
have emacs-minimal-org, emacs-no-x-toolkit-org, etc.  That being said,
I consider some variants to be more important than others, particularly
regular emacs-PACKAGE > emacs-any-other-variant-PACKAGE.  Which ones to
build on CI will imho be much rather a political discussion than a
technical one.

Cheers