Re: Language library packages should require language package

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hartmut Goebel <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> skribis:

> But you are missing my main point: While `guix environment --ad-hoc
> python-requests` installs some depended python packages, it does not
> install `python`. This is asymmetric and quite different than users are
> used from rpm and deb based systems.

Indeed.  I understand this is surprising.  It stems from the fact that
Guix doesn’t know about the relation between ‘python-requests’ and
‘python’.

Even if it did, it’s not clear to me that automatically installing both
would be a good idea.  There are cases where one may want to choose a
particular variant of the ‘python’ package rather than have an
arbitrarily chosen default.

Does it make sense?

> To take this one step further: Assume in GuixSD 1.3 some user is told
> "install python-bla-blub vai the Guix Package Manager GUI", then she
> ends up with an incomplete environment. She would have to figure out
> what other dependencies (esp. the language interpreter) are required.

Most likely one would provide a file that can be passed to ‘guix
environment -l’ instead of writing down the instructions.  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.