Re: Reorganizing guix package commands

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Kost <address@hidden> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès (2016-04-18 20:20 +0300) wrote:

[...]

>> I can see how adding “package” everywhere helps categorize things
>> mentally, but as a user interface, I think it would be rather bad.
>
> As a user, I think it would be rather good.  (This is just my user opinion)

To clarify, what I meant is that forcing users to type an additional
word for common operations just for the beauty of categorization sounds
unwise to me.

For instance, I’m happy I can type ‘ls’ rather than ‘gnu core file list’.
:-)

Similarly, it’s not immediately obvious to me that something like “guix
package edit” and “guix package install” would help newcomers.

On the contrary, they would likely violate the rule of least surprise:
most other tools provide sub-commands like “install”, some provide
“edit” and “build” as well, without further categorization.

>> 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.
>
> Hm, OK, I'm not sure, but let's leave "graph" and "size" alone for now.

But there are many other similar cases.  For instance, ‘guix build’ can
be passed a .drv; ‘guix archive’ can be passed a package name or a store
file name, etc.

Passing package names is a mere convenience for many of these commands;
fundamentally, many operate on store items, derivations, etc.

This requires careful consideration.

>> I still think that having aliases like “guix install” as Andy proposed
>> long ago would be useful, though I never started working on it.
>
> I agree!  Except I think they should be inside "guix package":
>
>   guix package install ...
>   guix package remove ...

As I view it, the sole purpose of “guix install” and similar is to make
it easier for newcomers to get started (see <http://xkcd.com/1654/>),
and to allow users in general to type less.

Adding “package” in the middle would probably defeat that goal.

> As for the transactional operations (I mean remove/install in one
> command), I think we can do it in a separate "guix profile" command:
>
>   guix profile --install ... --remove ...

This sounds good to me.

>> 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.  :-)
>
> Here is the summary of the changes I think it would be good to have:
>
> | Replace this:                     | With this:                        |
> |-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------|
> | guix build                        | guix package build                |

I don’t like this one, for the reasons given above.

> | guix edit                         | guix package definition¹          |
> | guix import                       | guix package import               |
> | guix lint                         | guix package lint                 |
> | guix refresh                      | guix package refresh              |

I suppose the benefit would be that users can type ‘guix package help’
and see all the sub-commands that relate to packages, right?

> | guix package --show               | guix package show                 |
> | guix package --search             | guix package search               |
> | guix package --list-available     | guix package list                 |

Or just ‘guix show’, ‘guix search’, etc.?

> |-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------|
> | guix package --list-generations   | guix profile --list-generations   |
> | guix package --list-installed     | guix profile --list-installed     |
> | guix package --delete-generations | guix profile --delete-generations |
> | guix package --switch-generations | guix profile --switch-generations |
> | guix package --roll-back          | guix profile --roll-back          |
> | guix package --manifest           | guix profile --manifest           |

> ¹ "edit" name is confusing: <http://bugs.gnu.org/22587>
>
> Maybe instead of --list-generations and others, these options should
> transform into subcommands (list-generations) of "guix profile".

I agree.  But what should we do of transactions?

Thoughts?

Ludo’.