Expense proposal: Restore Sublime syntax highlighting support for Dhall

#1

Somebody brought to my attention on Slack that the GitHub repository for the Sublime syntax highlighting plugin for Dhall has gone missing (the repository and the owner’s GitHub account are gone). The scope of this proposal is to restore/reimplement that support and I propose reserving $200 to fund that work.

According to our expense guidelines I need to formally document the following:

  • What purpose is the expense for?

    To create a Sublime plugin for Dhall that supports syntax highlighting

  • Is this a one-time or recurring expense?

    One-time

  • What is the amount you wish to expense?

    $200

Also, the expense has to be approved by the same process that we approve changes to the language standard

1 Like
#2

Has the repo completely disappeared? Would this involve starting from scratch? I’m not familiar with syntax highlighting but that sounds like a lot more work that what we’ve previously allocated $200 for

#3

Maybe @vmchale can comment on how much work is involved since she maintains the equivalent syntax support for VSCode

#4

Sorry to revive this funding proposal. I forgot to announce it the first time, so I’m just going to through the 1 week waiting period a second time to to double-check before announcing that funding is available for this proposal.

#5

I have a working .sublime-syntax file and a semi-automated way of producing it from the VSCode Dhall Language support. However, I would need to spend some time documenting how to do it. Is this funding proposal still open?

#6

Yes, this proposal is approved and we have the funds available for this.

#7

OK, I’ll start work on documenting my solution.

How would you want me to go about publishing it when it’s ready? I assume ultimately we’d want to get it into the PackageControl repository so Sublime users could install it easily. However, it’ll need to go into a GitHub repo and I think it would be best if it was in the dhall-lang org, like the VSCode support.

#8

Yeah, whenever you’re ready to publish this the easiest way to do it is to first publish under your own account and then we can transfer it to the dhall-lang organization whenever you’re ready to do so.

#9

Thanks. Sounds good.

1 Like
#10

Hello,

I am the original author of the package for Sublime Text.

I guess I owe an explanation for deleting the original repository like I did. Let me say that I’m sorry for any trouble I may have caused. I was not in a good place, mentally, at the time I was working on this project. Having a public presence on github was very stressful for me. One day it was all too much, and I dealt with it in the only way I could at the time: by impulsively deleting everything.

I haven’t been using dhall or sublime text as much as I was back then, so I haven’t looked back at the project. But my attention was brought to this thread by an email this evening from Michal Kukiela who tracked me down. Michal has got hold of the original syntax file I wrote years ago, and I’ve agreed for him to republish and maintain it on his github as a Sublime Text package. He very kindly offered to pass up the bounty for filling this proposal, and allow me to claim it as the original author.

I would like to claim the $200 if I may. I asked Michal to comment here with the repo once it’s ready, so hopefully he’ll be along soon to chime in.

#11

Fantastic! The way it works is that you submit an expense for $200 here:

… and then I’ll approve the expense. Thank you so much for doing this!

#12

The original .sublime-syntax file can now be found here: GitHub - kukimik/dhall-sublime-syntax-highlighting: Dhall syntax highlighting for Sublime Text.

Note that it was created in 2019, and I am not even sure if it is the latest version that was published (but, basing on @lawbel’s words, I believe it is quite close to it). The Dhall language has evolved since then, the file is not up to date. I am going to work on it as time permits.

I have not published it to Package Control yet. @Gabriel439 I’d rather have it transfered to the dhall-lang organization first, as suggested by @neil.mayhew.

The work of @lawbel served as reference when the VS Code syntax highlighting was implemented. This is stated in the README and is clearly visible in dhall-tmlanguage.ts. However, I have another .sublime-syntax file that looks much closer to the dhall.tmLanguage.json that is generated by this TypeScript executable. In fact, it looks like it was generated from the dhall.tmLanguage.json, but I can’t be sure of that. I failed to convert the current version of the .tmLanguage file to .sublime-syntax using the converter script provided by Sublime Text. Perhaps it is possible with some earlier version.

It clearly would be great if it was possible to (semi-)automatically convert the .tmLanguage syntax definition to .sublime-syntax.

I have a working .sublime-syntax file and a semi-automated way of producing it from the VSCode Dhall Language support . However, I would need to spend some time documenting how to do it. Is this funding proposal still open?

@neil.mayhew Are you open to sharing the results of your work?

#13

I managed to convert the VS Code syntax definition to .sublime-syntax. In fact this time it just worked; I converted JSON to PList using the TextMate Languages VS Code plugin and then converted it to .sublime-syntax using the convert_syntax.py script packaged with Sublime Text. For now I published the converted file in kukimik/dhall-sublime-syntax-highlighting along with @lawbel 's original file.

#14

Just leaving a note that I created a PR to add the package to the Package Control default channel. The review process make take a few weeks.

EDIT: (unfortunately I can’t add another reply in this thread) I’m pleased to announce that the Dhall syntax highlighting package is available again in the Package Control default channel. :tada:

I’d like to thank @lawbel for creating the original package, and for replying to my request for permission to republish the package and the subsequent questions in such a kind way. Big thanks to the user who preserved the original .sublime-syntax file in their dotfiles! And thanks to @PanAeon for working on the VSCode syntax highlighting and for preserving fragments of the SublimeDhall’s test suite.

@Gabriel439 Can we transfer the repository to the dhall-lang organization on GitHub?

#15

Yeah, if you put in the transfer request to dhall-lang I’ll accept