Subject: [bug#36131] Removing some of the Common Lisp packages for ECL?

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2019 10:56:23 +0200

Hello,

Cc’ing Andy as the original author of all this.  :-)

Katherine Cox-Buday <[email-masked]> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> writes:

[...]

>> I noticed that ‘ecl-hu.dwim.asdf’ and ‘ecl-rt’ fail to build, so I
>> couldn’t test all the ‘ecl-*’ variants.  Could you take a look at these
>> two packages?
>
> I focused on the SBCL packages and then retroactively went back and
> added all the ECL packages, trying to be a good citizen. In retrospect,
> this was not a good idea. Common Lisp code is not guaranteed to work
> across runtimes.
>
> If you're OK with it, I would just go ahead and delete any ECL package
> that doesn't immediately work. I can do this myself, but I'm currently
> on holiday and won't be able to take a look for another week and a half.

Sure, removing packages that don’t build sounds good to me.  Andy, WDYT?

>> More generally, does it make sense to have ECL variants for each and
>> every package?  Or should we trim that down?  I’m under the impression
>> that ECL is typically used with rather small code bases since it’s meant
>> to be embedded, but then I’m not a Common Lisper.
>
> I think ECL is used outside embedded contexts, but I haven't found a
> reason to use it yet. If I remember correctly, I think one compiles
> faster than the other, and the other runs faster, so some people switch
> between the two when developing and then deploying.

OK, I see.

Thanks for explaining!

Ludo’.