Hi Arun, On Tue, 30 Jun 2026 at 12:00, Arun Isaac <[email protected]> wrote:
> I spoke about Guix at STEP-UP RSLondon 2026, a conference for research > software engineers (RSEs) primarily based at UK universities. Abstract here: > https://step-up.ac.uk/events/step-up-2026/abstracts/#software4 My > thinking was to advocate for Guix in the primarily conda+pip dominated > world of the RSE. I got some feedback that I'd like to share. Cool! > For example, we often have very short manifest files that look like: > ``` > (specifications->manifest '("pkg1" "pkg2" "pkg3")) > ``` > Maybe, we should additionally support a plain text format like: > ``` > pkg1 > pkg2 > pkg3 > ``` Well it sounds to me as some Walder’s law variant. ;-) https://wiki.haskell.org/Wadler%27s_Law > [julia-json] > name = julia-json > version = 0.21.3 > source = git+https://github.com/JuliaIO/[email protected] > build_system = julia-build-system > propagated_inputs = [julia-datastructures, julia-fixedpointnumbers, > julia-parsers, julia-offsetarrays] > home_page = https://github.com/JuliaIO/JSON.jl > synopsis = JSON parsing and printing library for Julia > description = @code{JSON.jl} is a pure Julia module which supports parsing > and printing JSON documents. > license = Expat Based on my experience from my various talks, tutorials and direct user’s support I did time to time, I sometimes get a similar feedback too: Scheme is hard … pick an action … check the parenthesis or indent or else – most of the times, these users don’t even need to manipulate such Scheme configuration since `guix describe -f channels` and `guix shell --export-manifest` do almost all the jobs. :-) Well, what’re they complaining about thus? The conclusion I’ve reached: it isn’t about the format per-se (parenthesis vs toml vs json vs ini vs else) because this or that format isn’t simpler but only easier. It’s just about habits and as we know the habits mirror the hype. ;-) So, if it’s not about the format, what? It’s because the text-editor! Today, people launch RStudio, VSCode, etc. and most of the time the format they advocate for is built-in supported: highlight, indentation, etc. And when their editor doesn’t support this or that format, it’s easy to install one plugin and done. About Scheme, the step is bigger. Most of the time, the users with who I interact fight for editing Scheme. Somehow, Guix Packager removed the blank page yeah \o/ but sadly not the next obstacle: highlight, indent, check parenthesis balance – the main features editing Scheme requires. Therefore, IMHO, the user-experience improvement might indeed to allow other simple formats as TOML (or JSON, already done! :-)) that seems easy. However, I think it’d pay off to improve the situation for editing Scheme (without any special “efforts“). 1. Smooth how to edit Scheme with VSCode, RStudio, etc. 2. Provide ’guix editor’ subcommand which would be a minimal Guile-Studio. Cheers, simon PS: When helping colleagues about debugging R or Python on their machine which most of the use requires minor tweaks of their files, we type with their text-editor. When it’s Guix-related, I start by guix shell emacs-minimal -- emacs -q only to have highlight, indentation and check parenthesis balance. Ouch (a) I have no idea how to configure such with their text-editor, and (b) they have no idea, too.
