Hi Alex, Alex Vong <[email protected]> writes:
> Recently, I've read the chapter on Macros in Guile's manual. The manual > says that Guile's expander originated from that of Chez Scheme's and > that version was portable to other schemes as well. So I search the > Internet and find it[0]. The website states that the expander needs an > expanded version of itself for bootstrapping, i.e. psyntax.ss needs > psyntax.pp for bootstrapping. > > After playing for awhile, I realize the relationship of Guile's > psyntax.scm and psyntax-pp.scm is exactly analogus. One needs an > expanded version of psyntax.scm, i.e. psyntax-pp.scm for bootstrapping. > > Does this mean Guile is not bootstrappable from source only? That's correct. psyntax-pp.scm is not source code, and it is needed to bootstrap Guile. However, I made an effort some years ago to make psyntax-pp.scm far smaller and more readable than the corresponding file from upstream psyntax. See: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?h=stable-2.0&id=72ee0ef71b9a0514874976cdcf3ea9d5333db4b1 https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guile.git/commit/?h=stable-2.0&id=1af6d2a717f499564fbbc297c79e00ac14b0dcf9 At this point, I believe it would be quite feasible for a single hacker to audit our psyntax-pp.scm and compare it to psyntax.scm within a reasonable time frame. Furthermore, when we make local changes to psyntax.scm, the corresponding changes to psyntax-pp.scm are localized and quite easy to audit as well, so the full audit need not be repeated. Having said this, I agree that it would be better if psyntax.scm were written in such a way that it could be bootstrapped without the use of itself. Maybe some day we'll rewrite it to make it so. Mark
