Re: [9front] Noob questions

[ori@eigenstate.org]

> Hi,
> 
> Upon a whim I have installed the latest release of 9front (PLAN9-HATERS).
> 
> I have a few noob questions:
> 
> 1. I have "ported" EuScheme (a EuLisp Level 0 interpreter) and xlispstat ( a
> Sunset of Common Lisp with Extensions for statistical computing. Both based
> more or less on David M. Betz' XLISP. I have put ported in quotes because I
> have compiled using APE (ape/psh ape/make and ape/pcc). The compilation
> result runs under 9front w/o APE. It works so far for me. What should I do?

First, a quick nitpick: APE is really two different things -- it's a set of libraries that
emulate posix on plan 9, and a command line environment (both programs and namespaces) that
emulate a unix shell. Your program still uses ape, just not the shell part of it.

Using APE is an actual port. :)

> a. Use the stuff for my own purposes and keep quiet.

Make it available somewhere (sourcehut is nice this time of year, but any git
provider should work well enough.)

> b. Work on a "proper" port using 8c/6c and mk. Make the plot routines work using graph(1).

Depending on what you want from the port, and what kind of maintenance burden
you want to take on, this may or may not make sense.

The balancing act here is deciding how far to diverge from upstream to integrate
nicely into the environment, vs how much pain you're willing to tolerate keeping
up with upstream.

I usually encorage porters to try to keep the delta with upstream as small as
possible, and send the portability fixes that make sense upstream.

> c. Shut up, Install Linux or Windows and leave 9front and its users alone.
> 
> 2. I would like to have a array programming language at my disposal. Currently the most promising candidate is Rob Pike's Ivy. As it is written in Go, the way forward is:
> 2.1 Install a binary package of Go 1.4.3 or 1.14 (done).
> 2.2 Bootstrap a version of Go that is aber to compile Ivy from it using the pacjages from step 2.1.
> 
> Has anyone else attempted this? I would be grateful for any hints or recomendations.

Yep. It works pretty well.

There's even a ports repository that may help: http://code.9front.org/hg/ports/ 
Note, it's a lot jankier than I'd like, and could use a rewrite.