Re: Are declarative app configs worth it?

[Sergey Trofimov <sarg@sarg.org.ru>]

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

> Sergey Trofimov <sarg@sarg.org.ru> writes:
>
>> - adding it to guix increases maintenance burden: new versions 
>> could
>>  add or remove config options
>
> This is why there should be automated tests.  There are too few 
> of them.
>

that adds up to the pile of boilerplate to implement a simple 
config. If guix mandates it for new packages, it'll raise the bar 
for contribution even higher than it already is.

>> - it bloats guix: imagine if we add configs for every
>>   user-configurable app
>
> That would be nice.
>
> If we started to accept the term bloat we could easily apply it 
> to
> anything in Guix: all that R stuff?  Bloat!  All that bioinfo 
> stuff?
> Bloat!
>

imo, R and bioinfo should be in channels.

>> - such configs are not easily transferrable: if I were to use 
>> the
>>   same app in non-guix env, I'd have to maintain 2 configs
>
> We are generating configuration files from our config languages. 
> So you
> would only need to generate them and copy them for your non-guix
> environment.
>

Sure, that's why I wrote "not easily". My non-guix env is a 
corporate Mac laptop. Currently I just clone my dotfiles, symlink 
required configs and it's done. I can make changes in both 
environments and there is no unnecessary "compiling" step 
involved.

>> Another recent example is `oci-container-configuration` which 
>> defines
>> a subset of docker-cli startup arguments. The problem is that 
>> `docker
>> run` command has 96 options and the configuration only uses a 
>> handful,
>> lacking a way to provide the remaining ones.
>
> All config bindings need to have an escape hatch.
>
That would be great.