Subject: Re: [bug#28262] [PATCH] Handle the same HTTP redirects everywhere.

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2017 11:43:07 +0200

Hi,

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <[email-masked]> skribis:

>> As a followup, we should look into merging the two ‘http-fetch’
>> procedures.  I don’t think the initial motivation for having two
>> separate implementations still holds.
>
> I'll push this fix and close this bug, but if you have the time I'd love
> to know more about that initial motivation. The two have grown quite apart.

Initially (guix http-client) existed simply to paper over API changes in
Guile’s (web client) and to work around bugs in older Guile version.
This is because (guix http-client) is used on the “host” side, where we
support(ed) older releases of Guile 2.0.

(guix build download) didn’t really have this constraint because the
Guile used on the “build” side was known, and known to be recent enough
in most cases.  So all it did was to add a higher-level API above what
Guile provides, which follows redirects, etc.

Since 36626c556ed75219bce196ac93d148f6b9af984c we require Guile >=
2.0.9, so some of the bugs/workarounds we had no longer apply and the
separation probably no longer makes sense.

HTH!

Ludo’.