[Nix-dev] Typing nix − funding campaign

[Thomas Hunger]

Hi,

For my own curiosity: Is your adviser's work online somewhere?

~

On 12 January 2017 at 17:17, Théophane Hufschmitt <rg_nixos at regnat.ovh>
wrote:

> Thu 12 Jan 17 − 15:31, Peter Simons(simons at nospf.cryp.to) a écrit:
> > Hi Théophane,
> >
> >  > https://www.gofundme.com/typing-nix
> >
> > I see that you plan to spend approx. 2 months (a third of the entire
> > project's time) on developing a parser for Nix. Why do you feel that
> > this is necessary, considering that there is a parser for Nix already?
> >
> > The notion of working with a separate implementation worries me because
> > I see the danger that your efforts are going to exist in a parallel
> > universe which won't be possible to merge back into Nix proper.
> >
> > Or, to put it differently, does your project even have the goal of
> > providing a working implementation for Nix? Or is it more about
> > exploring the design space for type systems that Nix could potentially
> > use?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Peter
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> The two months are not just for formalizing the syntax and writing the
> parser, but also (and mostly) for bibliography.
>
> I agree with your concerns about the separate implementation.
> The reason for this is related to your third paragraph. The inference
> algorithm that is going to be used is no trivial at all to implement,
> and my advisor already has done a lot of work on this that could be
> reused, but written in OCaml, and we agreed that writing and
> maintaining a parser it was far easier than reimplementing what he
> already had done, and that it would be too hard to ship a usable
> product in a few month without using it.
>
> Regarding the goal of the project, it will be focused on providing a
> working implementation for nix (although that will of course first
> require exploring the possibilities for a type system for nix). There
> is enough theorical work to come up with something usable (and useful)
> for a langaige such as nix.
>
> --
> Théophane Hufschmitt
>
> Thu 12 Jan 17 − 15:31, Peter Simons(simons at nospf.cryp.to) a écrit:
> > Hi Théophane,
> >
> > > https://www.gofundme.com/typing-nix
> >
> > I see that you plan to spend approx. 2 months (a third of the entire
> > project's time) on developing a parser for Nix. Why do you feel that
> > this is necessary, considering that there is a parser for Nix already?
> >
> > The notion of working with a separate implementation worries me because
> > I see the danger that your efforts are going to exist in a parallel
> > universe which won't be possible to merge back into Nix proper.
> >
> > Or, to put it differently, does your project even have the goal of
> > providing a working implementation for Nix? Or is it more about
> > exploring the design space for type systems that Nix could potentially
> > use?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Peter
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> The two months are not just for formalizing the syntax and writing the
> parser, but also (and mostly) for bibliography.
>
> I agree with your concerns about the separate implementation.
> The reason for this is related to your third paragraph. The inference
> algorithm that is going to be used is no trivial at all to implement,
> and my advisor already has done a lot of work on this that could be
> reused, but written in OCaml, and we agreed that writing and
> maintaining a parser it was far easier than reimplementing what he
> already had done, and that it would be too hard to ship a usable
> product in a few month without using it.
>
> Regarding the goal of the project, it will be focused on providing a
> working implementation for nix (although that will of course first
> require exploring the possibilities for a type system for nix). There
> is enough theorical work to come up with something usable (and useful)
> for a langaige such as nix.
>
> --
> Théophane Hufschmitt
>
> _______________________________________________
> nix-dev mailing list
> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/attachments/20170112/0d11bec8/attachment-0001.html>