Re: Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements

[Konrad Hinsen]

Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:

> To me it’s not entirely clear that a unified command would be easier to
> use for newcomers.  For example, I’m not fond of “guix profile” as a

Indeed. It's also not clear to me if a single command line package
for beginners and power users is the best way to go. Maybe we should
have two levels of commands, with tutorials using only the simpler one.

> So I definitely agree we need to homogenize what ‘guix environment’ and
> ‘guix package’ currently provide, but I’m not sure where to go from
> there.  Perhaps we need to discuss on concrete CLI proposals to have a
> better idea?  Dunno!

If enough people are willing to work on this (beginners included!), we
could run a "CLI working group" that plays with alternatives to the
current CLI, implemented as a separate Guile package so it won't perturb
business as usual. That requires a few people working on implementation,
and a much larger group willing to test-drive the design(s) and provide
feedback.

> I have an actionable wishlist though:  :-)
>
>   1. Arrange so that ‘--ad-hoc’ becomes the default in ‘guix
>      environment’, and add a ‘--devel’ (?) option for what’s currently
>      the default.

That sounds good to me, with

>   2. Add that same ‘--devel’ option to ‘guix package’.

being the obvious (and less controversial) complement.

I'd probably prefer the more descriptive –-inputs-of for the option name.

>      Tricky because of compatibility considerations, but would be an

That's the eternal question!

>>  - Better support for adding/managing channels at the user account
>>    level. Users shouldn't have to edit Guile code (unless they want to).
>
> You mean like ‘guix channel add URL’?  Are you looking at this from a UI
> perspective?

Yes.

> Are you also suggesting a “GuixHub” (I already hate that name :-)) that

That's not something I personally care about (I am all for the
distributed Web), but if there's a demand, why not.

>>  - Support for creating and managing channels without having to
>>    descend to the file and repository level.
>
> Not entirely sure what you mean.  Could you give examples of what you’d
> type to create a channel, say?

For management, something like git's remotes:

 guix channel add my-channel URL
 guix channel remove my-channel
 guix channel describe my-channel
 guix channel show-all

For channel creation, something like git's init:

 guix make-channel directory-name

That would create the directory name, run "git init", add minimal code
making a template (something like the "hello" package), and perhaps a
file with a summary of instructions.

>>  - Support for something one could call super-packages or named
>>    manifests. Named package groups that live in a channel (or a guix.scm
>>    distributed with software external to Guix). Perhaps parametrizable
>>    and/or containing configuration files, so you could put something
>>    like (nginx #:port 8080) into a manifest file.
>
> So this thing would be a profile + services?

A bit less than a service, because no process would be started or
managed. I might want to run that nginx instance manually and/or
under my user account. Also on a foreign distribution that doesn't
know about Guix services. Think of something like a Jupyter server.

Cheers,
  Konrad.