Re: Reorganizing guix package commands

[John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>]

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On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:45:26PM -0400, myglc2 wrote:

     Table 2: Novice-friendly Commands
     =================================
     | existing command                       | new command           |
     |----------------------------------------+-----------------------|
     | guix package --list-available[=REGEXP] | guix available REGEXP |
     | guix package --search=REGEXP           | guix find REGEXP      |
     | guix package --show=PACKAGE            | guix show PACKAGE     |
     | guix package --install PACKAGE         | guix install PACKAGE  |
     | guix package --remove PACKAGE          | guix remove PACKAGE   |
     | guix package --list-installed[=REGEXP] | guix list             |
     | guix package --roll-back               | guix roll-back        |
     
     This makes the most important new user commands simpler and it makes
     them appear in "guix help". IMO, this will go a long way to improving
     the novice user's experience.
     
I agree this would make more sense.

1. I never did understand why we use so many  -- flags.  Options are supposed
   to be just that:  Options to affect nuances about how the command should be
   executed. Eg "ls --color" (We don't type "file --list")  Options should not
   normally be used for selecting a command to run.

2. However, I wonder if such an arrangement could come back and bite us?  For
   example there are a number of other things that one might want to remove, list, show or find - 
   not just packages;  Profiles, services for example.  How would doing that fit 
   into the above scheme?

J'
     

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