Re: missing patch for texlive-bin (e77412362f)

[zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

Hi Tim,

On Fri, 04 Feb 2022 at 23:20, Timothy Sample <samplet@ngyro.com> wrote:

> Yes.  I could add that commit to the database, evaluate it, and load all
> the sources.  I’m inclined not to, but I’m open to being convinced.  (I
> really like how simple the current system is conceptually.)

I understand.  Especially on the light of…

> That’s about it.  To my mind, “The History of the Guix Package Database”
> *is* the first parent walk that you describe.  Of course, that’s just my
> feeling.  There’s lots of room for disagreement there.  Basically, if
> you can’t reach a commit by starting at 1.0.0 and running ‘guix pull’
> without arguments, it doesn’t exist!

…this.  I agree that the aim is the guarantee of a preservation for
revisions only reachable by “guix pull”.

Aside PoG, this raises a point that I asked elsewhere.  The time-machine
is able to go any revisions, but 1. some revisions are known to fail and
2. only some revisions are preserved.  Therefore, something appears to
me missing: advertise about this collection of “working” revisions.

*working still a vague meaning. :-)

Well, I do not know via which mechanism?  Maybe add something as narinfo
or else attached to this collection of “working” revisions.  Then,

   guix time-machine --commit=1234abcd -- help

would warn that this 1234abcd is not part of this collection and there
is no guarantee it would work.

I do not know, I am thinking loud. :-)


> More or less.  Burning CPU is definitely the main thing holding back
> processing all the commits, but it would likely take a bit of effort to
> get code that works for around one hundred commits to work for
> thousands.  The second thing is diminishing returns.  Burning *way* more
> CPU to track down a couple sources feels a little wasteful to me.
>
> For me, the scope of PoG is perfect the way it is.  It’s big enough to
> be useful, but not so big to be overwhelming.  There are lots of serious
> problems to be addressed, too.

I understand and I agree.


Cheers,
simon