Re: [GSoC 2020] [Proposal draft #0] Initial JVM support for Guix

[Leandro Doctors <ldoctors@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 at 12:39, Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> wrote:

> Hi Leandro!

Hi, Julien,

Thanks a lot for your feedback! I add my comments below.


> I'm glad you're interested in JVM languages.

In fact, I am only interested in Clojure... However, given that
Clojure is hosted on the JVM, it seems very difficult to me not to
think in JVM terms when describing a "Clojure importer". This is the
main reason behind the proposal name change from my previous emails.


> I cannot find a way to I am currently trying to build a proper maven-build-system (it's a matter of days now).

Again, I am only speaking in JVM terms because of Clojure's hosted nature.


> Some of the issues we have with JVM languages and that you should take into account  for your proposal:
[...]

Thanks for this!


> - maven allows programmers to upload a "source" jar, but it is meant for debugging, contains generated sources and might be incomplete.

Even though I don't have data to back up this claim, in the
Guix-Jupyter Scicloj video session [1] they mention that, in the case
of Clojure, most packages usually include sources.

[1] Guix-Jupyter Scicloj video session from January 9th, 2020.
https://scicloj.github.io/posts/2020-03-07-guix-jupyter/


> - maven doesn't link to source repositories

You're right.

However, Clojars (the primary hub for Clojure packages) does. Maybe
implementing Clojars support could be a first step?
(I still have to assess this, as there are many Clojure packages that
are published primarily in Maven Central...)


> - how to find a source repository from a groupId and an artifactId is not clear to me.

Considering the previous points, this seems mostly a Java-specific problem?


> Considering that, I don't know if your project is doable. At least, all other importers are able to give you a working source, but if it's
> really impossible, having a list of dependencies would already be great :)

I agree with you in that this does seem non-trivial...
Perhaps, this could be a research-oriented project? I mean, to see
whether it is feasible to (eventually) support the JVM, and the major
milestone being a minimalistic POC implementation for Clojars support?


> We have a lot of java packages, but none of them are usable with maven yet. I've worked on those that are directly required to run
> maven and its common plugins already, and will send patches as soon as everything works. There will need to be a huge work on
> these packages to rebuild them, probably with the maven-build-system.

I guess this means I should focus on Clojars?


Best,
Leandro