Subject: [bug#58583] [PATCH 0/1] scripts: package: Forbid installation of the guix package.

From: zimoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2022 12:47:39 +0100

Hi (, Maxim and Tobias,

Well, as I said, I do not have a strong opinion.  If 3 of you think an
error is better than a warning, then I rally to the proposal.

Minor comments about yours. :-)

On ven., 28 oct. 2022 at 15:31, "\( via Guix-patches" via <[email-masked]> wrote:

> What about just this?
>   guix shell guix
> That's still possible.

To be precise, the correct would be:

    guix time-machine -C channels.scm -- shell guix

which is… equivalent to define a profile. ;-)  i.e.,

    guix package -i guix -p my/dev

On ven., 28 oct. 2022 at 11:47, Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Does the benefit of fixing the Guix API used via a user profile
> installed Guix package outweigh the cons of downgrading the version of
> guix used as the user's package manager?  I don't think so.  By
> installing the inner 'guix' into your user profile, you are basically
> downgrading its version compared to the one you used to install it.
> That's a pretty confusing thing to happen for most users.

I agree.  However, to me, it is a warning (or a hint) – «hey you are
probably doing something wrong» – and not an error – «we provide you
something but no, not this way».

Therefore, why do we provide the ’guix’ package in the first place?

(BTW, I think the correct way to use Guix as a library is to use it via
GUIX_EXTENSIONS_PATH as pioneered by gwl and followed by
guix-modules. :-))

On ven., 28 oct. 2022 at 18:20, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Guix-patches via <[email-masked]> wrote:

> How does one continue to use guix *as a package manager*, having 
> now silently broken ‘guix pull’?

There is a confusion here, maybe?  Guix is also a Guile library and that
library is designed around package management.

Well, maybe instead the package ’guix’, it should be renamed
’guile-guix’ or ’guile-libguix’.

On ven., 28 oct. 2022 at 19:01, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Guix-patches via <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Would this be address by refusing only to ‘guix install guix’ 
> without an explicit --profile argument?  This would eliminate 99% 
> of unintentional footguns.  We could still warn.

Personally, I do not consider ~/.guix-profile more special.  But maybe,
it would help to address the newcomer’s confusion.

Again, I think a strong warning is better than a hard error but I do not
have a strong opinion.

Cheers,
simon