Re: The future of 'guix environment'

[Leo Famulari]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 11:11:33PM +0800, 宋文武 wrote:
> > 1) Add a caching mechanism.  The environment profile should get built
> > once, and then a symlink to it should be created in $PWD and
> > registered as a GC root.  This will, of course, require re-using some
> > 'guix package' code to delete the profile.  For the sake of the rest
> > of this post, let's say that a --cache flag does this, and a --update
> > flag forces a rebuilding of the cached profile.

I like that the results of `guix environment` are ephemeral by default.

> I always run 'guix environmeut guix' and have to wait for substitutes
> before entering the shell, indeed caching the environment will save me
> much time, but usually I don't mind that and was already used to the
> "awlays being latest" behaviour...
> 
> I definitely want this feature too, so how about rename the current
> implementation of 'environment' to 'guix shell', whose ad hoc behaviour
> is similar to the 'nix-shell', and start a new implementation with this
> persistent behaviour?

I agree. If we change the behaviour to leave files in the current
directory and register GC roots then we should use a new name or rename
the existing functionality. I'm in favor of using a new name for new
functionality.

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