[bug#38576] [PATCH] gnu: r-irkernel: Fix R kernel loading

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

Hi,

Thank you for your patch!

On Thu, 12 Dec 2019 at 13:36, Lars-Dominik Braun
<ldb@leibniz-psychology.org> wrote:

> > > @@ -12423,6 +12429,8 @@ running IRkernel session.")
> > >         ("r-evaluate" ,r-evaluate)
> > >         ("r-irdisplay" ,r-irdisplay)
> > >         ("r-jsonlite" ,r-jsonlite)
> > > +       ;; sets R_LIBS_SITE, so R can actually find this package (IRkernel)
> > > +       ("r-minimal" ,r-minimal)
> > >         ("r-pbdzmq" ,r-pbdzmq)
> > >         ("r-repr" ,r-repr)
> > >         ("r-uuid" ,r-uuid)))
> >
> > This doesn’t look right to me.  It seems wrong for any R package to
> > propagate R itself.  The R_LIBS_SITE variable is “attached” to
> > “r-minimal”, so when that is installed R will find the r-irkernel
> > package.  Am I missing something?

> If r-minimal is not installed, the kernel will simply not work and thus
> render this package useless. That’s why I would consider it a dependency.

Hum? it is true for any R package, isn't it?
I mean, all the R packages needs R to work but R is not a dependency.

We can discuss if a R package has to propagate R itself or not.
But it is not how the R packages are usually defined in Guix; AFAIU.
To stay coherent, "r-minimal" should not be propagated or I also miss
something. :-)

Currently, I usually type "guix install r r-pkg" and not "guix install r-pkg".

All the best,
simon