Re: [doc RFC] Tame the Guix profile blizzard?

[George Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com>]

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Hi George,
>
> George Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> ISTM we can improve this situation as follows:
>>
>> 1) agree on a canonical term to use for the 4 types of profiles
>
> I think you mentioned only two types of “profiles”: one is profiles
> created by ‘guix package’ or ‘guix environment’ or ‘guix system’ (they
> are all the same kind of “profile”), and the other one is execution
> profile, which has nothing to do with that.
>
> So to me it seems that “profile” is in fact used fairly consistently,
> isn’t it?

Yes ... but ... the use of these profiles produces subtly different
"side-effects". Package operations cause changes in the user's "default"
profile that are immediately "used" in the user environment.  However
'guix package -p foo' does not cause foo to be "used".  'guix
environment --ad-hoc' causes the environment profile to be "added" to
the user's environment, but --pure substitutes it for both system and
"default" profiles IIUC.  IMO these could be better explained and more
easily referenced by users if we develop a structured nomenclature to
distinquish between these.

> However…
>
>> 3) add a top level discussion of profiles
>
> … we surely need this.  Someone we should clearly define “profile”
> somewhere upfront.  Perhaps we also need a glossary.

Agreed