On 2025-02-24 13:29, 45mg wrote:
But with Guile, even the function names and arguments are mostly
replaced with underscores, so the backtrace tells me almost nothing. I'd
have to manually open every single file location in the stack to find
out the function names. As for the arguments, I'd actually have to
inspect the source and mentally trace the chain of function calls to
figure out what's being passed to each function.
I know I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but it's absolutely
infuriating how primitive the Guile developer experience is compared to
every other langauge I've ever used. The second I see a Guile backtrace
I immediately start questioning my choice to work on Guix, when I could
be using literally any other language that isn't this painful.
Well, while I 100% agree with you in the fact that the underscores are
really frustrating (also sometimes the backtrace has some ellipsis that
doesn't let you see the whole error...), let me put this in a different way:
Programming language implementations are not immutable. We are lucky
that we have a close connection with Guile. If we spend some time giving
Guile love, we could hugely improve our lives.
I know it's frustrating. But let's use the frustration to make Guile
better, or at least to show our interest on improving it.
I've been advocating for this for long, and I think this thread is a
very good excuse to, again, try to bring some Guix energy to Guile.
We depend on it too much.
Also, comparing to Nix, Guile can be improved but is a nice language.
Nix isn't, and can be improved, too. :)
Best,
Ekaitz
