all messages for Guix-related lists mirrored at yhetil.org
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz>
To: Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 11:29:39 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87ftjhtbp8.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87v9sdvnb9.fsf@netris.org>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2394 bytes --]

Hi Mark!

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> It doesn't remove them, but it overwrites them, thus losing the
> information of what the previous environment was.  Now, it's true that
> for *most* of those environment variables, the previous value is a
> suffix of the new value, but that's not always the case.  One notable
> counter-example is GUIX_PROFILE itself, which is simply overwritten.
> Others include GIT_EXEC_PATH and ASPELL_DICT_DIR.

- ASPELL_DICT_DIR is broken: #29686.  We should fix it anyways.

- What's the use of GUIX_PROFILE once a profile is loaded?  I believe
  it's only there for the user to know which was the last loaded
  profile.  Which is a bit broken in my opinion: I believe GUIX_PROFILE
  should point to the default profile, but this is not possible when
  using multiple profiles.

  With my `guix-activate` proposal, GUIX_PROFILE would not have to be
  overridden.

  Although we could also fix this by modifying the etc/profile file so
  that they don't depend on GUIX_PROFILE being set to themselves (which
  is the actual bug here).

- You are right about GIT_EXEC_PATH, any clue why it has to be overridden?

> There's no way to change the environment variable in Emacs without
> running Emacs lisp code, e.g. by running M-x setenv.

Indeed, for Emacs `guix-activate` would run some Elisp code.  It would
essentially work for every program that can edit its own environment.

> Note that I'm not passing judgement on the merits of your proposals, I'm
> merely letting you know that they cannot be implemented as envisioned,
> at least not if I understand correctly.

With the shell/Emacs/etc. specialization we discussed, I believe it
would be :)


To clarify: what I'm proposing is a more universal, better encapsulated
way to activate profiles.

Currently we can do

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
GUIX_PROFILE=/path/to/profile ; . $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

which has some shortcomings:

- It only works for Bourne-style shells.  Activating profiles for
  different shells / programs require some work from the user; we should
  do this work upstream I believe.
- It exposes too many implementation details.
- It's too long ;)

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 487 bytes --]

  reply	other threads:[~2019-10-25  9:29 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 73+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-10-23 16:37 Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements Pierre Neidhardt
2019-10-24  9:00 ` Mark H Weaver
2019-10-24  9:32   ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-10-24 16:28     ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-10-24 16:42     ` Danny Milosavljevic
2019-10-24 18:16       ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-10-24 19:23         ` Mark H Weaver
2019-10-24 20:04           ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-10-24 21:35             ` Mark H Weaver
2019-10-25  9:29               ` Pierre Neidhardt [this message]
2019-10-31 11:38                 ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-11-03 14:18 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-04 10:39   ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-11-04 11:06     ` zimoun
2019-11-05  6:26     ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-05  8:35       ` Hartmut Goebel
2019-11-05  9:03         ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-05  9:09           ` Hartmut Goebel
2019-11-05  9:22             ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-11-05 15:36       ` zimoun
2019-11-05 16:05         ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-06 12:09           ` zimoun
2019-11-07 13:07             ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-06 17:07           ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-06 22:21             ` Bengt Richter
2019-11-07 13:52             ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-06 16:35       ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-07  7:46         ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-07  9:04           ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-11-07 11:14             ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-07 11:36               ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-11-09 17:59               ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-10  9:36                 ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-11 15:56                   ` A better XML, config is code (was Re: Profiles/manifests-related command line...) Giovanni Biscuolo
2019-11-13 15:28                     ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-12  8:55                   ` Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements Andy Wingo
2019-11-12 20:07                     ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-13 20:58                     ` Bengt Richter
2019-11-16 22:02                   ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-17 10:44                     ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-18 14:25                       ` zimoun
2019-11-19 10:24                         ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-23 17:10                       ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-25 11:06                         ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-26  9:51                           ` On DSLs Ludovic Courtès
2019-12-02 19:05                             ` zimoun
2019-12-02 19:11                               ` Julien Lepiller
2019-12-03 10:19                                 ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-12-03 14:12                                   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-12-03 15:46                                     ` zimoun
2019-12-04  6:33                                     ` Bengt Richter
2019-12-10 16:26                                 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-12-08  8:48                               ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-12-03 10:26                             ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-12-03 12:00                               ` zimoun
2019-11-11 14:13           ` Profiles/manifests-related command line interface enhancements Hartmut Goebel
2019-11-16 22:27           ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-17 11:30             ` Konrad Hinsen
2019-11-18 14:40               ` zimoun
2019-12-22 19:40               ` Andreas Enge
2019-12-22 20:39                 ` Pjotr Prins
2019-11-18 14:15             ` zimoun
2019-11-26  9:36               ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-06 16:42     ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-07 12:57       ` zimoun
2019-11-17 10:35         ` Package inputs in manifests Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-17 23:11           ` Bengt Richter
2019-11-18 17:14             ` zimoun
2019-11-23 14:05             ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-11-24  5:49               ` Bengt Richter
2019-11-24  7:17                 ` Timothy Sample
2019-11-25  3:42                   ` Bengt Richter
2019-11-18 16:18           ` zimoun

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=87ftjhtbp8.fsf@ambrevar.xyz \
    --to=mail@ambrevar.xyz \
    --cc=guix-devel@gnu.org \
    --cc=mhw@netris.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git

This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.