At one point, years ago, I relied on every lambda returning a newly allocated object. I think I brought it up as a bug in Rainbow that the [] expressions in my Arc code were generating the same lambda-lifted result instead of creating unique objects each time.
But I think this was never something I could rely on in the original, Racket-based Arc either. The Racket docs don't specify whether a lambda expression returns a new object or reuses an existing one, and in fact they explicitly allow for the possibility of reusing one:
"Similarly, evaluation of a lambda form typically generates a new procedure object, but it may re-use a procedure object previously generated by the same source lambda form."
That sentence has been in the reference since the earliest versions I can find online:
I'm not sure if the bug you're referring to had to do with making the same mistake I was making back then, or if you're talking about making the opposite assumption (expecting two procedures to be equal), but it's probably best not to expect stability either way.
I was doing a deep-`iso` comparison I called `same`, because in Arc, hash tables are not the same. In Arc3.1:
arc> (iso (obj) (obj))
nil
arc> (iso (obj 1 2) (obj 1 2))
nil
So I made a function that iterated over the key/value pairs and compared them. In some unit tests, I used that on a hash table that contained functions. Yesterday, I refactored the unit tests to instead make sure the keys were right.
Interestingly, it seems that Anarki can compare hash tables:
arc> (iso (obj) (obj))
't
arc> (iso (obj 1 2) (obj 1 2))
't
Anyway, this should fix the unit test tests in the Anarki repo.
Thanks for checking in. The dates of the files in the directories is 2018. I downloaded recent version and gave it a spin: It took about a minute to start up and then I ran (app-start "news") and it started the news app.
Do you have much experience programming? That'll help tailor advice for your situation.
The first step is to get Arc running like you asked before. After that the next step would be to go through the steps in how-to-run-news in the Arc directory.
There's a lot involved in maintaining a site for a community at this point in time. A good language can only help so much.
Yes, I have experience programming from years ago and recently started learning Python until I happened across Arc. I think it's neat and would be great for my project. Where is the how-to-run news in case I don't find it myself? Thanks
I ran (load "news.arc") this time and it prints out a list of items prefixed with * redefining and 'nil' returns after the last item.
However, nothing happens at localhost8080 and when I run (nsv) it gives this message:
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
The syntax of the command is incorrect.
'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
load items: Error: "directory-list: could not open
directory\n path: C:\\Users\\Hopet Ma'at
Amun\\Desktop\\arc3.2\\arc\\news\\story\\\n system error:
The system cannot find the path specified.; win_err=3"
There are a number of system calls like (system "rm ...") in news.arc and other places. These run shell commands, and most of them only work on a POSIX shell. I'm sorry to say, I'm not sure anyone has ever gone through all these calls and made them portable so that news.arc can run on Windows.
If you use the Anarki master branch, I think a few of those calls have been replaced with more portable code, but not all of them. I've at least been able to get a server started up and showing content before.
I used to use Arc on Windows quite a bit, and I tried the web server a couple of times, but I never really used the web server. Nowadays I still use Windows, but I do a lot of my programming projects inside a Linux Mint VM using VirtualBox. I think running news.arc inside a VM like that would be one of the easier ways to get it working. Of course, learning to set up a VM like that could be a lot to figure out, but at least that's something a lot of people out there have already written up tutorials for.
Another possibility is to look for one of the many Hacker News clones that people have whipped up in other languages. You probably won't get to use Arc that way, but some of those clones may be better architected and better maintained than news.arc.
It looks like you're trying to run racket -f as.scm inside Racket. It's just a terminal command. Open a new terminal (unrelated to Racket) and type it in there.
I got it set up in the regular terminal by adding the path to environment variables, however, it gave me the same message as before. Is there something more I should be doing with the untarred folder, maybe?
I don't think so, since OP mentioned Arc 3.2 without any Nginx. I just tried it and I'm able to reproduce this issue with just the official branch in anarki (which is identical to Arc 3.2) without any Nginx.
Arc 3.2 doesn't get very frequent updates, but we should probably fix this in the stable branch. It shows the same error, and also has some errors in the log. Unfortunately I'm not sure when I can get to this. I've been having some RSI issues and time at the computer is limited at the moment.
Thanks for raising these questions! A few random thoughts that immediately occur to me:
My general bias is that CI infrastructure is uneconomic for this project[1], given the amount of effort I'm willing to put into Anarki at this point. But I have absolutely no objection to others continuing to maintain it.
I'd be fine with having a more complex set of instructions for contributors than newcomers. I'm totally willing to perform those commands for myself when I make changes to Anarki.
I'd also be ok with undoing some of this complexity if you want to do that, though I don't mean to push for that in any way.
I think it's also not super onerous to require people to manually update the docs when making changes. That way we can get rid of gh-pages, and configure Github to just rebuild docs from the trunk branch. That eliminates one use case for CI.
Your final proposal is also fine, though as you mentioned someone would have to implement it.. :)
[1] As context, I also plan to remove CI from the project I _do_ actively work on.
I appreciate your frankness, lol. Anarki maintenance happens whenever we feel like it. :-p I have been feeling an inkling of an Arc urge lately, hence this post, but I have other priorities right now that this is basically procrastination from.
What do you mean by getting GitHub to build docs from the trunk branch? That's what that part of the CI script is there to simulate; I think there's still no actual way to configure GitHub Pages to build from anything but a `gh-pages` branch or a `<username>.github.io` repository.
Oh, I see, you're right. I checked that settings page, but the big blank "social preview" image made me think I was at the end of the page, so I forgot I could scroll down. That's interesting.
