bug#38529: Make --pure the default for `guix environment'?

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Pierre,

Pierre Neidhardt <address@hidden> writes:

> --pure seems to be the more sensible behaviour.  "Impure" environments
> can have unexpected behaviours, so it makes sense to only allow them
> when the user explicitly asks for it.

Unfortunately Guix packages often don't work well with --pure.  Be it
magit that depends on git, or Emacs that depend or coreutils, etc.,
there are many things that are expected to be propagated and aren't
explicitly, by omission or sometimes for closure's size sake (when the
feature is optional).  We could argue that is a good reason for the
proposed change :-).

I think environments are great mostly for hacking and trying stuff
quickly, where the guarantees of Guix do not matter as much as for
profiles (and if they did, you'd be better with guix environment
--container anyway).

So, I guess that makes me more on the side of "let's no change the
defaults for now".

Maxim