Re: [PATCHES] Add (guix build emacs-utils) and some Emacs packages

[Mark H Weaver]

address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> address@hidden skribis:
>
>> I've attached patches to add new packages for 'magit', 'paredit',
>> 'emacs-w3m', and 'emacs-wget'.  While working on these packages, I found
>> that I needed a way to substitute multi-line s-expressions in the elisp
>> code, in order to replace initializers for variables.
>
> This looks very cool.  I had started looking at EMMS and
> substitute-sexps and substitute-vars will be very helpful in such cases.
>
>> The approach I took was to create a new module (guix build emacs-utils)
>> containing utilities that use Emacs itself to perform the substitutions.
>>
>> What do you think?
>
> I think it’s great!
>
> Comments below:
>
>> +(define %emacs
>> +  ;; The `emacs' command.
>> +  (make-parameter "emacs"))
>
> It should be exported.

Indeed!

>> +(define-syntax emacs-substitute-vars
>
> Perhaps ‘emacs-substitute-variables’?  (I try to avoid abbreviations in
> public names.)

Okay, sounds good.

>> +         (let* ((emacs (string-append (assoc-ref %build-inputs "emacs")
>> +                                      "/bin/emacs"))
>> +                (source (assoc-ref %build-inputs "source"))
>> +                (lisp-dir (string-append %output
>> +                                         "/share/emacs/site-lisp"))
>> +                (target (string-append lisp-dir "/paredit.el")))
>
> I find it nicer when the RHSs of ‘let’ are aligned.

Agreed.

>> +             (unless (zero? (system*
>> +                             emacs "--quick" "--batch"
>> +                             (format #f "--eval=~S"
>> +                                     '(byte-compile-file "paredit.el"))))
>> +               (error "failed to compile paredit.el!")))))))
>
> Perhaps this calls for an ‘emacs-batch-eval’ procedure?

Good idea.

>> +    (source (origin
>> +             (method url-fetch)
>> +             (uri (string-append 
>> "mirror://debian/pool/main/w/w3m-el/w3m-el_"
>> +                                 version ".orig.tar.gz"))
>
> What about using http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org/emacs-w3m-1.4.4.tar.gz ?

Alas, it is nearly 10 years old, and does not work with Emacs 24.
Attempts to compile it result in several occurrences of the following
error message:
      
   Emacs-w3m of this version does not support Emacs 24; try the
   development version

>> +    (synopsis "A simple web browser for emacs, based on w3m.")
>
> Just “Simple Web browser for Emacs based on w3m”, with no period.
>
>> +    (synopsis "A simple file downloader for emacs, based on wget.")
>
> Likewise.

Thanks, I'll post an updated patch soon.

     Mark