zimoun <[email protected]> writes: > Currently, GWL is the strongest available about env/deps management. > However, Lisp is not mainstream, especially with Bio* and few > pieces/workflow are already available.
Well, things can change. Did you know that Ross Ihaka of GNU R fame has been thinking out loud about a Lisp system as a successor to R? See https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/%7Eihaka/downloads/Compstat-2008.pdf and https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/%7Eihaka/downloads/JSM-2010.pdf A lisp dialect is used in one of the most impressive editors, and lispy languages have seen something of a renaissance with Clojure (also check out Kawa), the rise of Racket, and possibly the appearance of Guix ;) It’s not mainstream *yet*, but what becomes mainstream is really determined by users who demonstrate that the tool is up to the task. > From my point of view, GWL is two sides: > - the Guix Workflow, the engine of worklows which is already awesome !! > - the Workflow Language, the lisp EDSL which is hard to buy for the > non-lispers. The two are closely linked. Workflows in the GWL are described as Scheme values, exactly as packages in Guix are Scheme values. What emerges from these linked values is a graph. In the case of Guix that’s a huge network of software, whereas in the GWL the graph is an executable workflow. > Last, I do not understand how 2 workflow engines can co-exist. It is > error-prone and a spaghetti plate that I will not eat. :-) The GWL describes the relations between processes as workflows. An execution engine then makes sense of workflows, e.g. by running its processes on a cluster, spawning individual processes in isolated environments (“containers!”), pre-processing the data inputs (e.g. fetching files from a data repository or checking for staleness), … these things are really independent of the workflows themselves. But you really do need to have that network of processes first, and that’s what the GWL builds up as a live datastructure from Scheme values. And that’s why it’s much less useful to try to compile a CWL definition to the GWL — you’d lose most of the features the GWL can provide. > Happy FOSDEM !! (for people who are going) > Hope that nice ideas will be discussed during the GWL session. :-) I’ll be there and ready for a chat :) -- Ricardo GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6 2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC https://elephly.net
