Re: Should guix track package aliases?

[zimoun]

Dear,

On Sat, 9 May 2020 at 22:19, Josh Marshall
<address@hidden> wrote:

> [...] naming conventions between the source project, [...] , and guix itself 
> have some drift.

Some packages already track upstream name: see the field '(proprieties
(upstream-name . "foo"))', e.g., the package "r-flowsom",

> The approach which I think makes the most sense is to add an optional but 
> encouraged field in package definitions which takes a list of alternative 
> package names.  When using `guix search` this field could also be evaluated, 
> and when `guix package -i` is invoked and the target does not exist, these 
> aliases could be searched through for similar names to the non-existing 
> target and suggest the actual package they might have intended.

Well, the 'proprieties' field is not used by 'package->recutils' which
is the function used by "guix show" (and "guix search").  I do not
have an option if an extra field "upstream-name" should be added or
not.

However, from my point of view, "Explicit is better than implicit." as
said any good Zen. ;-)
So, I appears to me a bad idea to implicitly install 'bar' when I type
"guix package -i foo" because 'bar' is an alternative name I am not
aware of.

IMHO, the fix is to improve the synposis and the description to be
able to reach the expected package.  If the description is
well-written, then "guix search bar" should return the package "foo".


Well, do you have specific example in mind?


All the best,
simon