Hi!

Sorry for the delay.

Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> skribis:

> However, there is one curiosity. I've noticed that when I run
> "./pre-inst-env guix environment python2-contextlib2", the PYTHONPATH
> is configured to allow importation of contextlib2 from the
> $profile/lib/python3.4/site-packages directory tree, rather than
> $profile/lib/python2.7/site-packages. When I run python in this
> environment, I get a Python 2.7 interpreter.

The interpreter you get here is probably one that was already in PATH,
because the command above lacks --pure.

If you want to be sure, use:

  ./pre-inst-env guix environment --pure \
        python2-contextlib python-2 -- python

(Even better: --container instead of --pure.)

Can you confirm?

> I'm also curious: why does the "(#:phases" part need to be
> quasi-quoted with the backtick symbol "`"?

The #:phases part specified build code (info "(guix) G-Expressions").
That code is quoted because we don’t want to evaluate it; we merely want
to pass the code itself for future execution in the build environment.

Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Ludo’.