Subject: [bug#58365] [PATCH 0/6] Support #:tests? in guile-build-system

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2022 17:44:55 +0200

Hi Maxime,

That’s quite a wall of text that you sent.  :-)

Let me try to clarify what I think can be a fruitful way forward.
Again, I agree with the goal you have here, I’m just proposing a
different strategy.

To me, the problem that we have is lack of a standard way to run tests
in Guile packages that don’t use Autotools.  That, in turn, leads to
duplication in package definitions—whether it’s ‘check’ phases in Guix
or something similar in Debian and other distros.

Instead of addressing it downstream (in Guix), my suggestion would be to
address it upstream—that is, to promote one way to run SRFI-64 test
suites, for example with a new “guild test” command.

That “guild test” command would probably be very similar to
‘build-aux/test-driver.scm’.  As you note, this script is battle-tested
and provides useful functionality.  If we would turn it into a (scripts
test) module, that ‘guild’ would pick up, then we’d have a good start.
With proper documentation, programmers who use Guile would have an
incentive to use this method; packagers would benefit because the
default ‘check’ phase would boil down to invoking “guild test”.

I hope this clarifies my proposal.  WDYT?

Thanks,
Ludo’.