Re: guix-shell?

[David Thompson]

Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:

> David Thompson <address@hidden> skribis:
>
>> I will implement 'guix shell' if I can get your opinion on the best
>> approach to take.  Would you tweak guix/scripts/build.scm to handle
>> the special case or export the necessary procedures and create a
>> guix/scripts/shell.scm module?
>
> The problem with a command that spawns a shell IMO is that it does not
> compose well: you get a new shell (which shell program is actually
> run?), and you can influence a running shell, or use it in a script,
> etc.
>
> So instead I would imagine a command like:
>
>   guix environment emacs
>
> which would build the dependencies of Emacs, and then output the search
> path as per ‘guix package --search-paths’, so that one can just source
> it and be done.
>
> In addition, one could do things like:
>
>   guix environment -l foo.scm
>

I started working on this.  As a test, I wrote a script that loads a
list of packages from a file, builds them, and then outputs the search
paths.  One crucial search path is missing though: PATH.  Should 'guix
environment' create a new profile with all of the necessary packages in
it?  IIRC, nix shell doesn't do this, but I don't fully understand why
and how.

-- 
David Thompson
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