[bug#69552] [PATCH vREVISION 1/2] gnu: Add cyclone-bootstrap.

[TakeV]

I think I am a bit confused. Are you saying that we need to be able to generate 
the file ourselves from scratch, rather than using the upstream source code?

Or do you mean that we package the first version of the bootstrap compiler 
which is not automatically generated, then use the result to generate the 
cyclone binary, then use that to generate the bootstrap compiler, and so forth 
until we are at the latest version?

Mostly uncertain because the self-hosted compiler does generate the bootstrap 
compiler's source, but it is not needed to build the bootstrap compiler itself, 
and thus seems to be the same approach as guile aside from how the source code 
being written by a person vs a computer. 



-------- Original Message --------
From: Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>
Sent: March 13, 2024 8:45:03 AM EDT
To: TakeV <takev@disroot.org>
Cc: 69552@debbugs.gnu.org, guix-patches@gnu.org
Subject: Re: [bug#69552] [PATCH vREVISION 1/2] gnu: Add cyclone-bootstrap.


TakeV <takev@disroot.org> writes:

> On 3/13/24 08:12, Christopher Baines wrote:
>
>> tags 69552 + moreinfo
>> user guix
>> usertag 69552 - reviewed-looks-good
>> quit
>>
>> TakeV via Guix-patches via <guix-patches@gnu.org> writes:
>> I've had a look at this and I'm concerned about the bootstrapping
>> approach. If you look at cyclone.c, I'm pretty sure that's not the
>> preferred form for editing and it doesn't look like that from the
>> commits.
>>
>> Maybe there are things already in Guix that are similarly bad, but I
>> don't think that alone is sufficient to include more.
>
> Do you mean the package is wrong, or cyclone itself is not going about
> it the correct way? The instructions for building from source specify
> that this is the intended way of handling it.

It's not that cyclone is going about it in an incorrect way, just that
the approach used doesn't match up with Guix's requirement to build from
source (which is the prefered form for modification) in all but
exceptional cases.

Contrast this with Guile for example [1], rather than using some
generated C file for bootstrapping, it uses a Scheme interpreter
implemented in C.

1: https://bootstrappable.org/best-practices.html