Re: guix is the guildhall that we always wanted!

[Christopher Allan Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>]

Andy Wingo writes:

> On Thu 16 Mar 2017 23:01, Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>
>> If [Guix] starts encouraging a decentralized approach, that would
>> result in strong pressure on us to freeze our API, which includes even
>> such details as which module each package is exported from.  This
>> would drastically reduce the freedom Guix has to evolve the way its
>> packages are specified.
>
> I get what you are saying.  I think that if a future guildhall is
> decentralized but uses Guix it needs to minimize its burden on Guix.
> That could mean that the packages are actually specified in a different
> DSL with different stability characteristics -- for example that DSL
> could call specification->package under the hood for example, like
> Ludovic mentions.  (I should mention that this idea of using Guix and
> especially all its errors are my own -- haven't talked to others about
> it yet!)
>
> Which module a package definition is in is a good example of something
> not to depend on.

This makes sense to me... if it really is true that our scheme'y
Guildhall-style packages are so simple they're more data than code,
maybe we could even restrict them to... just data.  Just a list of what
files are being provided, etc.  That could easily be stored in some
minimal database.

I guess I'm saying +1.