Re: Using --manfistest with <profile>/manifest files

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> skribis:

> On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 at 17:24, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> I think there were several issues we discussed:
>>
>>   1. We can only approximate that actual profile content; storing
>>      an approximate ‘manifest.scm’ along with the profile would IMO be
>>      deceptive.
>>
>>   2. It’s easy to maintain compatibility over a data format, but it’s
>>      much harder to maintain compatibility for code.
>>
>> I think we discussed these issues the best we could in the megathread,
>> so I’m personally in favor of moving forward in a pragmatic way.
>
> By pragmatic way, you mean:
>
>  - let the format of <profile>/manifest as it is,
>  - write '--export-manifest' as an approximation
>
> right?

For example, yes.

> Well, I personally changed my workflow and now I always use manifest
> files.  And the situation that I described in the manifest about the
> "Working Scientific" doing install, pull, install, pull, remove,
> install, etc. is rooted in bad practises, so it should be avoided.
>
> Therefore, I agree that '--export-manifest' is the right approach, as an
> helping tool; too bad for some corner cases. :-)

Yeah, I think our goal is just to provide a tool to migrate from the
“imperative” way to the declarative way.  Once people have gotten
started with manifests, they no longer need that migration tool.

Thanks,
Ludo’.