[Larceny-users] snow install path

[William D Clinger]

Alex Shinn wrote:

> I'd like to be able to install R7RS libraries for larceny with snow2
> (distributed with chibi-scheme), which begs the question of where
> to put them.
> 
> I could put them under $LARCENY_ROOT/lib/R7RS/, but in
> general prefer a system-wide install, such as /usr/local/share/larceny/,
> which would require users of snow with larceny to set LARCENY_LIBPATH.

I see two problems with expecting Larceny users to put things in
directories such as /usr/local/share/larceny:

  * Windows machines don't have that directory.
  * Users of Linux and Macintosh machines may not have permission
    to add directories to /usr/local/share.  For example, I don't
    have permission to do that on one of the machines we're using
    for nightly builds.

That's why binary distributions of Larceny are released in a self-contained
directory.  Users who want to put the larceny script in /usr/local/bin can
do so if they have permission, editing one line to set LARCENY_ROOT, while
users who don't have the necessary permission or are using a Windows machine
can do whatever is appropriate for their situation.

Wherever you put the Snow-related directories, users could edit the
current-require-path initialized by startup.sch instead of setting
LARCENY_LIBPATH.  There are several alternatives here.

If you're proposing libraries that should eventually ship as part
of Larceny, then some subdirectory of $LARCENY_ROOT/lib might be
the most appropriate place.  You might create a new subdirectory
instead of using $LARCENY_ROOT/lib/R7RS/, which is intended to be
a directory that contains Larceny-specific implementations of the
R7RS standard libraries.

Will