Re: Preliminary questions before try guix

[Carlo Zancanaro]

On Wed, Feb 05 2025, Carlo Ascani via wrote:
> It may sound silly but what's the easiest way to find
> that commit ref?

Not silly at all! I have a local checkout of the Guix source, so I found
where the erlang package is defined (gnu/packages/erlang.scm), and I
looked at the git log with something akin to:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ git log --oneline -- gnu/packages/erlang.scm | grep 'erlang: Update to'
... snip ...
aa8df16bc5 gnu: erlang: Update to 23.2.1.
8c8eb07985 gnu: erlang: Update to 21.3.8.13
... snip ...
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

> Thank you people, I got a clearer idea now:
>
> - need to start with the basics of packaging

If you want precise control of your dependencies, then I think you'll
need to know your way around how packages are defined in Guix. There is
a tutorial in the cookbook: "(guix-cookbook) Packaging Tutorial"[1].

> - need to master time-machine and inferiors

I actually think time-machine and inferiors are less useful for setting
up development environments. While they can work, I find it generally
easier to create package variants (either by transformations,
inheritance, or copying from an old Guix commit into my manifest) which
I then maintain in the relevant project.

I recognise that this is in contrast to my previous email's ordering of
ease. Defining the package variants that I need takes more initial
effort than using inferiors, but I find it overall easier to work with
and maintain.

I still use time-machine when I want an entire manifest to come from a
specific version of Guix but I can't remember using inferiors any time
recently.

[1]: https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Packaging-Tutorial.html