On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Hartmut Goebel <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > being quite new to guix and playing around with `guix environment`. I > find it confusing and IMHO it is working the wrong way round: > > I'd expect it to get me an environment where the specified packages are > installed. So I could easily test if a new version of a program works as > expected. Instead I get an environment where the tools for building > these packages are installed. > > What I actually need to type | What I'd expect to type > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > guix env --ad-hoc python-2.7 | guix env python-2.7 > guix env python-2.7 --ad-hoc git | guix env git --XXX python-2.7 > > (Where XXX is placeholder for something like --for-building ;-) > > So basically I'd expect the meaning for the packages in front of > `--ad-hock` exchanged with those behind. > > Please note that these are two different views on environments: The > currently implemented view i the one of a developer, who wants to set up > an environment for building quick. The other view is the one of a user, > who wants to test packages. > > I'm in favor of changing `guix environment` to take the seconds view, > since I assume, this will be the case uses much more often. (Even given > that there ought to be no difference between developers and users, as > most users simply will not even think about something like a > build-environments.)
I disagree. One of the main use-cases of 'guix environment' is including a "guix.scm" file in your project's source code repository that includes a development package so new developers can run 'guix environment -l guix.scm' to get all of the dependencies of that package and start hacking. I think the current behavior should remain unchanged. - Dave
