gEDA-dev: guile-1.8 requirement

[Stuart Brorson]

On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Peter TB Brett wrote:
> On Monday 04 June 2007 11:41:46 Stuart Brorson wrote:
>
>> Of course, Guile does have the above-mentioned advantages, and I don't
>> know what I'd replace it with.
>
> Python?

I like Python plenty.  The requirements for a Guile replacement are:

1.  Can easily embedd small interpreter into gnetlist.
2.  Language is adapted to handling netlists (i.e. deals with text
     well, and one can create reasonable  data structures with it).
3.  Language is well-known in EDA community.
4.  Developers/sponsors of language understand and are sensitive to
     the needs of their users.

Of the above, only #1 and 3 are questionable to me.  Yes, you can
embedd a Python interpreter, but is it small?  (Note that linking to
Python doesn't make me happy since it then re-introduces the
dependency problem.  Moreover, Python does change from release to
release, although it's not as bad as Guile.)

As for #3, I don't know if the folks who use gEDA (as opposed to
software developers) are up to speed on Python.  I do know that TCL is
popular out there with EDA types.  Also, TCL is kinda like Lisp in
that it can behave as a functional language.  However, it isn't
strictly functional since you can also write procedures with it.

Anyway, I don't think we should change, but thinking about
alternatives is a fun exercise.  And folks from other projects
Googling for info on embeddeding an interpreter into their software
might benefit from our experience via reading this thread.

Stuart