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

[Ludovic Courtès]

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.

> +(define-syntax emacs-substitute-vars

Perhaps ‘emacs-substitute-variables’?  (I try to avoid abbreviations in
public names.)

> +         (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.

> +             (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?

> +    (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 ?

> +    (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.

Feel free to push with these changes.

Thanks for all of this!

Ludo’.