Re: Compile skribilo doc containing guix channel references

[Phil <phil@beadling.co.uk>]

Hi Simon,

zimoun writes:

> I am missing how the Skribilo file is it compiled?  At “guix pull” time?
> Or manually when running the script compile-docs.scm?
>

At the moment compilation is only manual and from inside the repo clone:
guix environment skribilo guile -- guix repl -- compile-docs.scm

Making it part of guix pull is an interesting idea given this is where
standard package compilation takes place.  For this to work any code
references would have to be of the form:
(use-modules (my-module foo)
(package->code my-package)

rather than direct access to scheme files in the repo clone using:
(source :file "foo.scm" :definiton 'my-package)

The advantage of using pacakge->code is that the documentation
compilation is then decoupled from the repo clone and can be generated
anywhere guix can be run (just like guix pull).

The 2 disadvantages are 1) Files in the repo, but not part of the guix
module system cannot be referenced, 2) The pretty-printing of packages
generated using package->code does not perfectly reproduce the format in
the repo clone - although they are functionally identical.

For example inputs are referenced fully qualified in-situ - eg
(@ (foo bar) baz), rather than just referencing baz in the inputs, and
importing (foo bar) at the top of the module.  Comments etc, are also
lost too.

If there was a nice way of referencing the uncompiled scheme files in
the channel without needing the repo cloned that would be perfect IMHO.
I don't think this is possible tho?