Re: The load path

[Rob Browning]

address@hidden (Paul Jarc) writes:

> If the init actions are limited to %load-path tweaking, then I think
> a directory-of-(directories|symlinks) is sufficient.  If the init
> actions can go beyond that (which will be possible if they are
> represented in Scheme files), then I'm not sure I want that to
> affect every one of my Guile invocations.  I'm glad my shell
> scripts, Perl scripts, Python scripts, etc., aren't all forced to
> load some site-wide initialization code.  Scripts know what they
> need, and take care of it themselves.  Arbitrary init code is
> convenient for interactive interpreters, but I'm wary of
> establishing it for all invocations.

After thinking about it further, I'm leaning toward agreement.  For
now, it might be best to stick with what we know we need:

  - move init.scm from its current location to
    ${sysconfdir}/guile-X.Y/.

  - add a configure argument that allows you to modify the default
    load-path.  One method I mentioned to Marius yesterday might be to
    add something like:

      --with-built-in-load-path='("foo" default "bar")'

    where this value is read, 'default expands to the default path,
    and we flatten any sub-lists.

Overall, I think it's a fair point that it may not be clear we need
generalized "startup actions" yet.  After a bit more consideration, I
realized I couldn't think of any Guile add-on packages that really
need them at the moment.  So unless we add features to Guile that do
require such actions (for Emacs, autoload settings are such a
feature), we should perhaps avoid any additional infrastructure.

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org and @debian.org; previously @cs.utexas.edu
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