Re: The load path

[Neil Jerram]

Andy Wingo wrote:

> On Sun, 2004-11-14 at 10:48 +0000, Neil Jerram wrote:
>  
>
> > Rob Browning wrote:
> >    
> >
> > >     --with-built-in-load-path='("foo" default "bar")'
> > >      
> > This looks good to me. If this option is not specified, I presume the 
> > default load path is ("$prefix/share/guile/site" 
> > "$prefix/share/guile/$effective_version" "$prefix/share/guile")
> >    
>
> This sounds good to me as well for 1.7, but with one reservation: there
> are hordes of linux users that just do ./configure; make; make install
> for all autoconf'd software they download. I don't want to have to tell
> each one of them to set --prefix if they want the program to actually
> work.
I'm not sure what you mean by setting --prefix each time.  All that the 
user needs to do is - once-off - add

(set! %load-path (cons "/usr/local/share/guile" %load-path))

to their .guile or the system init.scm.  And if the user can do 
./configure etc., I reckon they can do this.

(And who's to say that they haven't decided to install autoconf'd 
software in /opt/local, for example?)

> This means, distributors must be made aware that guile should
> follow the system C compiler's conventions, so that users are not
> surprised.
>  
Personally, I've been surprised in the past _by_ the C compiler's 
conventions.  I seem to recall having serious trouble with one version 
of Gtk in /usr and another version in /usr/local, because /usr/local 
comes _before_ /usr in the include path, but _after_ it in the linker 
path!  So - unless I was being really stupid at the time - not a good 
example to follow.

> Furthermore, if they put a /usr/local dir in the path, it should be
> before the default paths.
>  
I think it's probably unwise to set up a system so that ordering is 
important.  However, with the .guile/init.scm approach, the user has 
complete control here.

Regards,
   Neil