mighty-gerbils
Interest in Portfile (MacPorts)?
Hello,
I've recently become interested in Gerbil, and went to install it on my laptop. Lo and behold, there isn't a port available!
I don't have a problem building from source, but would be happy to attempt to create a Portfile that would make Gerbil available in the MacPorts ecosystem.
Would there be any interest in this? Or would gerbil prefer to vend exclusively via homebrew and build-from-source?
You are more than welcome to write a portfile! If you do, please file a pr so that we can add it to the source tree.
Awesome! I made a ton of progress yesterday (including variants that can toggle the various compile-time features). I'm currently debugging a segfault that occurs when running the ports version of gambit scheme, so it might be another few days (I think I've seen an issue or conversation about the same, so it may already have a solution).
The portfile is typically tracked in the macports repo, but if we desire a version tracked here I'm happy to make a PR (also to proposing adding a couple of lines to the documentation).
Ok, so I wanted to provide an update on where I'm at!
I've got the port of Gambit Scheme installing successfully on Catalina. I have to install the profile variant for now, but I expect that to be fixed as soon as a new release is tagged, thanks to https://github.com/gambit/gambit/issues/415.
I'm concerned that Gambit Scheme assumes Homebrew-located OpenSSL (https://github.com/gambit/gambit/blob/master/configure.ac#L2002), but I think based on the Gerbil documentation I'll just be able to use the port OpenSSL by setting some flags: https://cons.io/guide/#build-instructions
My current obstacle is that, because Gambit Scheme's compiler executable (gsc) conflicts with Ghostscript, the port has (sensibly) chosen not to install a binary with that name. I can use the GERBIL_GSC env variable to solve this, EXCEPT that the 0.15.1 release of gerbil scheme does not include https://github.com/vyzo/gerbil/pull/287.
So, at this point, my build fails because the binary gsc does not exist for build0.scm.
I'm planning to push forward tomorrow against the development branch since I'm sure there are other things I'll want to figure out, but I was wondering if there were plans to cut a 0.16 or a 0.15.2 any time soon!
In case that matters, the Nix expression for Gerbil and Gambit allegedly work enough to get you to a prompt, so could help you get there. Conversely, if you need do things that my Nix expressions don't, odds are I ought to update them too. See https://github.com/fare-patches/nixpkgs/tree/master/pkgs/development/compilers/gerbil/ and https://github.com/fare-patches/nixpkgs/tree/master/pkgs/development/compilers/gambit/
Also I recommend against packaging Gerbil 0.15.1. Please package the development branch until a new release is cut. Vyzo, any blocker to a release?
I want to finish the contracts pr before making a release, as that one is pretty important functionality/optimization-wise.
Roger, I'll play with the development branch... I think I can experiment with it but won't be able to ship a new Portfile until a release is tagged (but will confirm).
Thanks for the Nix resource @fare, I was contemplating whether nix or guix would be any easier, I see that you've linked to the nix-provided openssl in your gambit build as well (https://github.com/fare-patches/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/development/compilers/gambit/build.nix#L62). Perhaps I could patch the ports gambit version in a similar fashion.