Re: Ruby without RVM - what to do if the version I want is missing?

[Felix Lechner via <help-guix@gnu.org>]

Hi Daniel,

On Fri, Jun 14 2024, Daniel Littlewood wrote:

> I am trying to migrate from Debian to Guix.

Congratulations & welcome!  I did the same thing two and half years ago.

The next two months were some of the most painful weeks in my life, but
now I'm in a very happy place.

> I am used to using RVM/rbenv to manage my ruby versions

Unfortunately, I cannot help you with Ruby and will leave that to others
reading this list .

> Which parts of the manual should I read

Please put both the Guix and the Guile manual on speed dial.  An easy
way to do that is to type "C-h R" in Emacs and them select the manual.
Typing "i" will search the index of that manual.

Over time you will memorize large parts of both manuals.

You may be able to find some Scheme help in the IRC channel #scheme on
Libera.chat.

> `(package (name ruby-pry)...` and another `(define-public ruby-pg
> (package (name "ruby-pg")...`. What is the significance of
> define-public?

The (package declaration is a Guix record. [1] Those can be confusing
because field names do not result in command execution even though they
follow an opening parenthesis.

The procedure 'define-public' will define a new variable and export it
for use in other modules. [2]

> would it be useful for someone to have another channel where things
> like extra ruby versions are packaged and pre-built?

Almost everyone here has their own channel or contributes to a channel
outside the mainline.

> I wouldn't mind if there was a lower standard for stuff being pulled
> naively via rubygems or whatever.

You are not alone.  A lot of folks at Guix would appreciate that type of
automation.  Please have a look at 'guix import'. [3]

Good luck & thanks for trying GNU Guix!

Kind regards
Felix

[1] https://lepiller.eu/en/a-deep-dive-into-guix-records.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/Creating-Guile-Modules.html#index-define_002dpublic
[3] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-import.html