Re: [Chicken-users] Re: getopt, getopt_long?

[felix winkelmann]

>
>   I agree about the apt-like functionality, and even proposed the
> design of a domain-specific language for such purposes but Felix
> thinks it makes things too complicated.

Allow me a slight rant...

chicken-setup has served us well, but now has mutated into a large
intricate mess. There has been a rewrite a while ago, but the messiness
is still there, partly because a tool like chicken-setup has to do so
many different things (file-system operations, extension handling,
HTTP download, build invocation, cross-compilation, etc.). I think the
only solution is to
completely dump it and start from scratch. If we consider what we
essentially need (executing .setup scripts in a directory with the
egg sources), a backwards compatible API for executing the build
scripts it should be possible to reorganize the installation and
upgrading of eggs on a user's system in a simpler, better
maintainable and more transparent way.

I have actually tried to isolate the pure .setup API (hygienic
branch, module setup-api.scm), but haven't got the time
or energy to start with such a project (insert the usual *HINT*
here - if someone would be willing to go for it, he/she could
rely on my eternal gratefulness).

I think chicken-setup should NOT duplicate functionality that
modern packaging tools provide. Dpkg and portage will always
do a better job at that, and it would be more worthwhile to push
for adoption of eggs into these packaging systems (which, IIRC,
Ivan already does with debianizing several eggs). But a simple,
portable, library-only way of fetching a tarball via HTTP, extract,
build and install it, upgrade it if necessary and listing what's installed
would make all the extensions available to everybody (and that
would be enough, IMHO). A bare minimum to have access to all
those libraries and keep them up to date.


cheers,
felix