Hi David, On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 12:49 PM, David Craven <da...@craven.ch> wrote: > * guix/scripts/environment.scm: Add '--debug' flag to add common debugging > packages (file, gdb, strace, valgrind) to environment.
Thanks for the patch and trying to make 'guix environment' more friendly, but I don't really like this particular change for a few reasons: - The name "--debug" is misleading. When I saw the patch subject line, I thought it was a way to get 'guix environment' to print some verbose output for the sake of debugging the generated environments. As a user, I wouldn't expect --debug to affect the set of packages in the environment. - The debugging tools that a developer would want vary depending on the project. I don't use GDB or valgrind to debug my Guile programs, for example. - It tightly couples 'guix environment' to a particular, opinionated set of packages. What if the user wants to use a different variant of gdb? - Tools like strace are Linux-specific but we have plans to support additional kernels like the Hurd. I don't perceive a usability problem in this area, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. Could you explain your motivations behind this patch? Perhaps there's an alternative thing we could do, but in general I don't envision 'guix environment' having a deep knowledge of the available packages and having opinions about which packages users should choose. - Dave
