Re: Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

zimoun <address@hidden> skribis:

> On Sat, 16 Nov 2019 at 23:27, Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> > Me too :-) It's "guix package" that is the worst offender in my
>> > opinion. It does two distinct things: querying the package database and
>> > managing profiles. And now that we have "guix search" for queries,
>>
>> We also have ‘guix show’, but there’s no standalone command equivalent
>> to ‘--list-installed’, ‘--list-available’, ‘--list-profiles’, and
>> ‘--list-generations’.
>
> IMHO, we should have a generic alias system "à la" Git or an UI
> modifier via channel.

I agree, that’d be nice.

>>   1. Arrange so that ‘--ad-hoc’ becomes the default in ‘guix
>>      environment’, and add a ‘--devel’ (?) option for what’s currently
>>      the default.
>
> I agree. David proposed that in "The future of 'guix environment'".
>
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2017-08/msg00300.html
>
> And as Konrad mentioned, I prefer "--inputs-of" instead of "--devel".

OK, fine with me!  :-)

>>      Tricky because of compatibility considerations, but would be an
>>      improvement, and goes in the direction of shortening the distance
>>      between ‘guix environment’ and ‘guix package’.
>
> Let bump the version and break compatibility. :-p

Heh, I think we owe our users a smooth transition.

>>   2. Add that same ‘--devel’ option to ‘guix package’.
>
> And to be consistent, why not add a similar option to manifest (via
> "package-environment-inputs" exporting as "<option-name>" same than
> "--option-name"; I opt for option-name equal inputs-of instead of
> devel :-))

You mean we’d have a way to create a manifest and pass it the same
options as on the command line, as strings?

Thanks,
Ludo’.