guix shell init

guix shell init

[jgart]

Hi Guixers,

What if we had a command like `guix shell init`.

It would create a basic manifest.scm or guix.scm file for the user.

bloat or meh or yeh?

Sprinkling some Guix flakes on your day,

jgart

Re: guix shell init

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,

On Wed, 25 Oct 2023 at 02:24, "jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> wrote:

> What if we had a command like `guix shell init`.
>
> It would create a basic manifest.scm or guix.scm file for the user.

Is

    guix shell --export-manifest

not already doing that?  And “guix package --export-channels” is
similar for the channels.scm file.

Well, we could have a command somewhere for exporting both.  Maybe.

Following the idea, you would like:

    guix shell --init=python

that generates some guix.scm and channels.scm file where the guix.scm
would be a template for building Python some project.

Right?

Cheers,
simon

Re: guix shell init

[jgart]

> Right?

Hi Simon,

Yes, that is correct. Something like that.

Re: guix shell init

[Suhail]

"jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> writes:

> It would create a basic manifest.scm or guix.scm file for the user.

what would the "basic" manifest.scm or guix.scm do? could you share a
sample of what it would look like?

-- 
Suhail

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Re: guix shell init

[jgart]

It would generate this boilerplate somehow:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/tags/cookbook/sk/html_node/Getting-Started.html

Re: guix shell init

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,

On Wed, 25 Oct 2023 at 04:24, "jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> wrote:

> It would generate this boilerplate somehow:
>
> https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/tags/cookbook/sk/html_node/Getting-Started.html

Could you be precise about the boilerplate?  You would like that “guix
shell --init” would generate a template for some “guix.scm” file, right?

Cheers,
simon

Re: guix shell init

[jgart]

See this blog post for how nix does it for the `nix flakes init` command:

https://peppe.rs/posts/novice_nix:_flake_templates/

wdyt

Re: guix shell init

[jgart]

nix flakes also allows you to create your own custom template for use with `nix flakes init`:

https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-flake-init#template-definitions

We could do the same with `guix shell init` maybe...

Re: guix shell init

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,

On Wed, 25 Oct 2023 at 04:29, "jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> wrote:
> nix flakes also allows you to create your own custom template for use with `nix flakes init`:
>
> https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-flake-init#template-definitions
>
> We could do the same with `guix shell init` maybe...

Could you explain what “Nix flake” means using Guix terminology?

Cheers,
simon

Re: guix shell init

[jgart]

> Could you explain what “Nix flake” means using Guix terminology?

Hi Simon

Here's TLDR list of nix flake features and their guix equivalents (maybe):

Guix has features that overlap with flake features. What might be new nix features that the flakes API introduced might just be features that are built in to Guix by design as first class. Not all flake features are implemented or maybe make sense for Guix's API. This is potentially an open research question.

> Another feature of flakes is that they provide a consistent structure, which makes it easier to understand and use different Nix projects. Typically, they have a standard API where they provide Nix packages, NixOS modules, or other standard outputs.

Guix uses guix.scm and manifest.scm for this.


> Each flake has a lock file, flake.lock, which pins exact versions of its dependencies. This ensures that builds are reproducible, even across different machines.

Guix has a way to do this as well, currently.

> Flake evaluations can be cached. This means that if you're working with a particular set of flakes frequently, Nix won’t need to re-evaluate them every time, speeding up operations.
> A feature of the nix Flake edition is that Nix evaluations are cached.
> Running nix-shell can be a bit slow and take 1-3 seconds.

Ludo fixed the caching in guix shell and wrote a post about it.

A reference for the caching thing that flakes introduced:
https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes#Super_fast_nix-shell


There's also some comparison of Guix and Nix flakes here:

https://blog.benoitj.ca/2023-10-23-guix-home-configuration-part1-packages/
https://blog.benoitj.ca/2023-10-20-how-guix-compare-to-nix-and-vice-versa/


Wrapping up this email the Guix way – carefully packaged and with a sprinkle of flakes for good measure. Have a crunchy day ahead!

jgart

Re: guix shell init

[Simon Tournier]

Hi jgart,

On mer., 25 oct. 2023 at 14:12, "jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> wrote:

>> Could you explain what “Nix flake” means using Guix terminology?
>
> Here's TLDR list of nix flake features and their guix equivalents
> (maybe):

Thanks for explaining.

If I understand correctly, Guix does not miss some feature from Nix
flakes, right?

If yes, could someone explain what would be such feature?


> There's also some comparison of Guix and Nix flakes here:
>
> https://blog.benoitj.ca/2023-10-23-guix-home-configuration-part1-packages/
> https://blog.benoitj.ca/2023-10-20-how-guix-compare-to-nix-and-vice-versa/

Thanks for the links.

Cheers,
simon

Re: guix shell init

[Suhail]

"jgart" <jgart@dismail.de> writes:

> It would generate this boilerplate somehow:
>
> https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/tags/cookbook/sk/html_node/Getting-Started.html

i see. i'm relatively new to guix, but i think it would be useful to
have a utility that

- allows us to define some language-specific, and more generally
  "situation-specific", templates

- [optional] allows the appropriate template to be automatically selected

- allows the user to specify the template they desire

cheers

-- 
Suhail

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