Re: Racket packages / build system

[Bonface M. K.]

Hi racket-dev and racket-users!

I'm trying to create a build system for Racket in
Guix(a long-standing feature for some of us in the
Guix community). It appears that Racket, vis-a-vis
raco, maintains some "global" state whereby
package-installs leads to the update of some
files, links, search-paths and other refs(hence
the statefulness) that I won't go into.

There's a similar project, racket2nix(please see:
https://github.com/fractalide/racket2nix) which
overcomes this by generating a temporary
environment(by copying most of the racket folders
and the deps needed as writable folders) where it
installs with raco and then tries to update
racket's global state. This feels slow and
hacky. To summarize, the default racket install
system is quite stateful(!) and also many
operations seem to try to touch files.

I'm considering studying the racket2nix more and
going that route as a last resort if I don't find
a work-around for the aforementioned state issues.

Another possibility(though I don't know how
feasible that would be) would be to figure out how
raco works(by studying it's source) and do the
same thing in a Guix-y way. I however, don't know
yet how I would overcome the state issue :(

Racket-dev or racket-users, is there some
important thing I'm missing?  Is there some (maybe
undocumented, new or WIP) way of installing racket
packages without maintaining state?

Any pointers/ suggestions are gladly welcome. I'm
invested of having a way to package racket
packages in Guix; and I believe it's a big step
forward for Racket in increasing it's reach in the
Guix community :)

PS: Full e-mail thread here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-10/msg00298.html

-- 
Bonface M. K. <https://www.bonfacemunyoki.com>
Chief Emacs Bazu / Rieng ya software sare
Mchochezi of: <https://upbookclub.com> / Twitter: @BonfaceKilz
GPG Key: D4F09EB110177E03C28E2FE1F5BBAE1E0392253F

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