Subject: [bug#54393] [PATCH 0/2] Add 'guix manifest' to "translate" commands to manifests

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2022 10:27:53 +0100

Hi,

Liliana Marie Prikler <[email-masked]> skribis:

> The current implementation is missing the most important feature, which
> would be ‘guix manifest --profile $GUIX_PROFILE’ :)

True, we could add ‘-p’ and make it equivalent to ‘guix package
--export-manifest’.

I think lack of ‘-p’ is not a showstopper though since ‘guix package
--export-manifest’ remains available.

[...]

> Furthermore, one issue I have with both the existing and proposed
> approaches is that both mandate the specification style,

The reasons for the specification style are:

  1. That it’s easier to implement reliably, since you just need to rely
     on package specs.

  2. The resulting code is future-proof: if packages are moved from one
     module to another, or if their variables are renamed, it still
     works.

  3. It’s a one-to-one mapping compared to the command line, which
     hopefully makes it clearer.

However, ‘manifest->code’ existed before this patch series, so I think
it’s beyond the scope of this review.

Thanks,
Ludo’.