4 ms·

It works in the C world because everyone is super fixated on library compatibility, and the programs are expected to be rebuilt by the distribution when necessa

It works in the C world because everyone is super fixated on library compatibility, and the programs are expected to be rebuilt by the distribution when necessary. When an API is broken, this entails a new major version and installing both versions side by side until all maintained software is ported. This doesn't happen often enough to be an issue - that's the perk of having a really mature ecosystem.

Aerbil313 3y ago
On the other hand, having tasted Nix, the process you are describing seems as backwards and archaic as operating punched card computers to me. So much wasted human time, serving a need (of an ecosystem) now obsolete, thanks to Nix.
- brabel 3y ago
  I'm trying to use Guix (just prefer it due to the language, Guile, over Nix) but unfortunately it doesn't have a lot of software packaged yet. I tried to build a project I have but it doesn't even have a "builder" for the language I used , Dart (which compiles to binary on all OSs), and I can't find out how to create a "builder" for it... someone did this for Nix to build pub packages so it's possible, but it seems if you want to use Nix/Guix you're stuck on a very limited set of things you can use? Is that a fair analysis? Do you have hints to build your own software when it's not available on Nix/Guix?
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171379 Also, nix can do arbitrary building (arbitrary commands). You don’t need a specialized builder. You can write a specialized builder for your language too, if it doesn’t exist.
  - dannymi 3y ago
    In general adding a build system to Guix works like this: 1. Git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git 2. Nicolò Balzarotti already has a work in progress patchset adding Dart itself--see https://issues.guix.gnu.org/44926 https://issues.guix.gnu.org/44926 . Patch your guix checkout with the files you can download on that page via the downarrow buttons on the right. 3. Create a file guix/build-system/dart.scm (I'd copy it from guix/build-system/dub.scm and then s/dub/dart/g and s/ldc/dartcc/g) or whatever it is. This file is the "front end" and is support for dart for the guix package manager script. 4. Create a file guix/build/dart-build-system.scm (I'd copy it from guix/build/dub-build-system.scm and then s/dub/dart/g). This file is the "back end" and is responsible for the build of your package inside a new container. 5. Add references to your new files to gnu/local.mk 6. In your user package script (whatever you want to compile in dart), add #:use-module (guix build-system dart) near the top and then add (build-system dart-build-system) to your package. 7. guix environment --pure guix 8. ./bootstrap 9. ./configure --localstatedir=/var 10. make -j5 11. exit 12. ./pre-inst-env guix build -f yourpackage.scm or whatever 13. Fiddle with the "invoke" parts in guix/build/dart-build-system.scm until your user package works. 14. Submit your results to 44926@debbugs.gnu.org or guix-devel@gnu.org (no need to be subscribed). As you can see, adding a new programming environment is quite some work. Because every programming environment has its own idiosyncracies, I don't think it can be avoided even in principle.
    - brabel 3y ago
      Thanks for the detailed information. Looks like it's a huge effort. That Pull Request is adding Dart 2.8 while the current version is 3.1.5 (and it's released often, at least once a month). Most pub packages don't even work on Dart 2.x anymore. An unrelated question: what do you mean by my "guix checkout"? I saw this in some docs (to add guile-guix to the guile load path so emacs can help me write guix code) and I don't know where that is as I am using Guix OS (in a VM) and as far as I know there's no sources in it?
      - dannymi 3y ago
        >what do you mean by my "guix checkout" I mean the working copy (the local directory) created by git clone. >Looks like it's a huge effort. Probably. I've never used Dart in my life, so I don't have so much Dart-specific information, sorry. > That Pull Request is adding Dart 2.8 while the current version is 3.1.5 (and it's released often, at least once a month). Most pub packages don't even work on Dart 2.x anymore. Then as a next step you (or someone) would probably add another dart package for version 3, building it with Dart version 2 (is that how the dart build works? Probably). >as I am using Guix OS (in a VM) and as far as I know there's no sources in it? Just do the git clone. The guix package manager is a regular program (with source on git) like any other. I always use a git clone of the guix master branch (for like 6 years now) and it was never a problem. But if you instead want to use the version used by your OS, do guix build -S guix . It will unpack the source of the current guix and tell you where it is. I wouldn't bother doing the latter though. Also, basically there's a guix daemon that does the build container management (think of it as something like dockerd) and then there's the guix frontend. I'd never do "make install" in the guix working copy--so the guix daemon will not be fucked with. The ./pre-inst-env allows you to run the local directory guix frontend without installing it.

Aerbil313 3y ago

On the other hand, having tasted Nix, the process you are describing seems as backwards and archaic as operating punched card computers to me. So much wasted human time, serving a need (of an ecosystem) now obsolete, thanks to Nix.

brabel 3y ago
I'm trying to use Guix (just prefer it due to the language, Guile, over Nix) but unfortunately it doesn't have a lot of software packaged yet. I tried to build a project I have but it doesn't even have a "builder" for the language I used , Dart (which compiles to binary on all OSs), and I can't find out how to create a "builder" for it... someone did this for Nix to build pub packages so it's possible, but it seems if you want to use Nix/Guix you're stuck on a very limited set of things you can use? Is that a fair analysis? Do you have hints to build your own software when it's not available on Nix/Guix?
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171379 Also, nix can do arbitrary building (arbitrary commands). You don’t need a specialized builder. You can write a specialized builder for your language too, if it doesn’t exist.
- dannymi 3y ago
  In general adding a build system to Guix works like this: 1. Git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git 2. Nicolò Balzarotti already has a work in progress patchset adding Dart itself--see https://issues.guix.gnu.org/44926 https://issues.guix.gnu.org/44926 . Patch your guix checkout with the files you can download on that page via the downarrow buttons on the right. 3. Create a file guix/build-system/dart.scm (I'd copy it from guix/build-system/dub.scm and then s/dub/dart/g and s/ldc/dartcc/g) or whatever it is. This file is the "front end" and is support for dart for the guix package manager script. 4. Create a file guix/build/dart-build-system.scm (I'd copy it from guix/build/dub-build-system.scm and then s/dub/dart/g). This file is the "back end" and is responsible for the build of your package inside a new container. 5. Add references to your new files to gnu/local.mk 6. In your user package script (whatever you want to compile in dart), add #:use-module (guix build-system dart) near the top and then add (build-system dart-build-system) to your package. 7. guix environment --pure guix 8. ./bootstrap 9. ./configure --localstatedir=/var 10. make -j5 11. exit 12. ./pre-inst-env guix build -f yourpackage.scm or whatever 13. Fiddle with the "invoke" parts in guix/build/dart-build-system.scm until your user package works. 14. Submit your results to 44926@debbugs.gnu.org or guix-devel@gnu.org (no need to be subscribed). As you can see, adding a new programming environment is quite some work. Because every programming environment has its own idiosyncracies, I don't think it can be avoided even in principle.
  - brabel 3y ago
    Thanks for the detailed information. Looks like it's a huge effort. That Pull Request is adding Dart 2.8 while the current version is 3.1.5 (and it's released often, at least once a month). Most pub packages don't even work on Dart 2.x anymore. An unrelated question: what do you mean by my "guix checkout"? I saw this in some docs (to add guile-guix to the guile load path so emacs can help me write guix code) and I don't know where that is as I am using Guix OS (in a VM) and as far as I know there's no sources in it?
    - dannymi 3y ago
      >what do you mean by my "guix checkout" I mean the working copy (the local directory) created by git clone. >Looks like it's a huge effort. Probably. I've never used Dart in my life, so I don't have so much Dart-specific information, sorry. > That Pull Request is adding Dart 2.8 while the current version is 3.1.5 (and it's released often, at least once a month). Most pub packages don't even work on Dart 2.x anymore. Then as a next step you (or someone) would probably add another dart package for version 3, building it with Dart version 2 (is that how the dart build works? Probably). >as I am using Guix OS (in a VM) and as far as I know there's no sources in it? Just do the git clone. The guix package manager is a regular program (with source on git) like any other. I always use a git clone of the guix master branch (for like 6 years now) and it was never a problem. But if you instead want to use the version used by your OS, do guix build -S guix . It will unpack the source of the current guix and tell you where it is. I wouldn't bother doing the latter though. Also, basically there's a guix daemon that does the build container management (think of it as something like dockerd) and then there's the guix frontend. I'd never do "make install" in the guix working copy--so the guix daemon will not be fucked with. The ./pre-inst-env allows you to run the local directory guix frontend without installing it.