Re: Reorganizing guix package commands

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Kost <address@hidden> skribis:

> I've just sent a message to bug#22587¹, but I realized it is better to
> discuss it here in a separate thread.
>
> So, I think there are inconsistencies in guix commands.  For example, we
> have "guix system build" to build a system, but "guix build" to build a
> package.  IMO "guix package build" would be a better choice.
>
> In general, I think it would be good to move package commands inside
> "guix package", e.g, to make "guix package lint", "guix package size",
> etc.

Why not consider “package” to be the default word?  :-)
I can see how adding “package” everywhere helps categorize things
mentally, but as a user interface, I think it would be rather bad.

Also, it’s not that simple: “guix size” can take a store item instead of
a package name, “guix graph” cannot do it yet but it would be useful if
it could (“guix graph -t references $(readlink -f /run/current-system)”),
etc.

I still think that having aliases like “guix install” as Andy proposed
long ago would be useful, though I never started working on it.

There are probably other improvements to do around “guix package” (maybe
turning some of its options into separate sub-commands as was suggested
before.)  All we need is a clear view of where we’re going and patches.  :-)

> Wouldn't it be great to make some breaking changes?  I mean if this or
> any other proposal on "guix" command structure is reasonable, I think
> it's just the time for it while Guix is still alpha/beta.  Otherwise,
> the current command structure will never be changed.

I agree, now is the right time to break everything!  ;-)

Ludo’.