Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <address@hidden> skribis:

> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 12:07:14AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Technically it would be easy to allow the installation of different
>> versions of a package in the same profile, but I wonder about the
>> implications.
>> 
>> For instance, ‘-u foo’ would upgrade all the installed versions of
>> ‘foo’, so you would end up with exactly the same version twice.
>
> Good catch (or rather "bad feature"?).
>
> So should we indeed rename version 2 of the python package to python2, to
> allow easy installation together with python version 3?
>
> We could do the same for Qt, but if anyway versions 4 and 5 are not
> installable together, there does not seem to be a need.

I don’t think so.  In this thread, I rather wanted to discuss the
implications of allowing same-named packages to be installed in the same
profile, should we decide to go that route.

> In any case, the outcome of installation should not depend on whether we
> do them in one or in several commands.

Agreed.

> Another idea: How about letting "guix package -u foo" upgrade only the
> package with name foo and the latest version if there are several with the
> same name?

That’s a possibility, yes.

But I wonder if there are other issues beyond -u.

Ludo’.