Re: [Chicken-users] Re: Q: Installing extensions & Source code

[Ed Watkeys]

On Sep 13, 2004, at 4:13 AM, Felix Winkelmann wrote:

> Ed Watkeys wrote:
> > On Sep 12, 2004, at 12:00 PM, Johannes Groedem wrote:
> > > By the way, chicken-setup can download eggs for you (as of some 
> > > recent
> > > version), provided they're available from the Chicken homepage:
> > >
> > >  $ chicken-setup loop
> > >
> > >  The extension loop does not exists.
> > >  Do you want to download it ? (yes/no) [yes]
> > I know that, but I'm not sure how I learned it. Does anyone have any 
> > interest in checking out the eggs documentation with an eye toward 
> > making it more useful to someone who has never used Chicken before?
>
> From http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/eggs/index.html:

Okay, okay: I'm officially a moron. :) This is an area that is a 
problem because Chicken is actually simpler than Perl or Python. With 
those two languages, you need to download something manually and un-tgz 
it. There's almost always an INSTALL file that says, "perl Makefile.pl; 
make; make install" or whatever. Of course, Perl now has a 
chicken-setup like utility -- and a CPAN shell to go with it -- but I 
never use it, because I can't remember how to get to it. Maybe a 
full-time Perl hacker will remember it, but I live in a world where in 
the space of a month, I'm writing Perl, Python, Java, PostgreSQL stored 
procedures, Oracle PL/SQL, and of course Chicken. There's only so much 
trivia the can fit in my mind at once.
> (But I agree that this should perhaps be linked more "visible" from 
> the main page)

What if each egg had a boilerplate INSTALL file that said everything 
that the top of the eggs page does?
> Yes, that's right. It's kind of a goose hunt finding where exactly a 
> particular
> definition is hidden.
> If there's anything missing in the index, please tell me, and I will 
> try
> to fix this (as far as me texinfo skills allow).
>
> You mean some kind of general cross-reference? Good idea.

That's not what I meant, but that would indeed be a good idea. Perhaps 
a sort of glossary/index/xref all in one?:

Core input/output
        display, read, write.

        See also input/output.

Input/output
        core input/output, readline, sfio, srfi-38.

        See also networking.

I/O
        See input/output.

E-mail
        See mail.

ftp -- Basic FTP client.
        ftp:connect, ftp:disconnect, ftp:ftp?, ftp:set-type!,
        ftp:set-mode!, ftp:change-directory, ftp:open-list,
        ftp:open-input-file, ftp:open-output-file, ftp:abort,
        ftp:delete-file, ftp:rename-file, ftp:delete-directory,
        ftp:create-directory

        See also networking.

Mail
        pop3, smtp.

        See also networking.

Networking
        ftp, http, pcap, pop3, smtp, spread,
        tcp-server, udp.

pop3 -- Mail retrieval via the POP3 protocol.
        See also mail.

sfio -- AT&T safe and fast input/output interface.

srfi-38 -- Large object input/output [public domain]
        See also input/output.

. . .

Now how would we automagically build such a thing?

Regards,
Ed

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