zimoun <zimon.touto...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > Why do you say that "guix shell" does not reflect what the command is >> > about? >> > Because the command spawns a new shell with options (expanding it, >> > isolating it, etc.) >> >> The command does not necessarily spawn a new shell; it spawns a command >> in a well-defined environment, and that command might be a shell. > > What about "guix spawn"? “spawn” is a very generic verb, much like “enter” (enter what?) or “make”. “shell” has the awkward property of meaning different things dependent on how you interpret it: “to shell” means to *remove* an outer shell (like that of a nut) whereas “guix shell” as a noun would imply *wrapping“ something in a shell. It sends mixed signals. We’d probably want people to understand it as ‘spawn a command line shell’, but that’s really not the primary purpose of ‘guix environment’. Thinking about words some more I started to wonder: do we want verbs or nouns? We have some sub-commands that could be interpreted either way: archive gc hash Others that are primarily understood as nouns: container environment graph package processes repl size system time-machine weather And a majority that are primarily understood as verbs: build challenge copy deploy describe download edit import install lint pack publish pull refresh remove search show upgrade If we were looking for verbs that express the idea of creating an environment or to place a thing inside of an environment we could use one of these: to envelop (envelop what though? This seems to require two objects.) to arrange (kinda misses the point) to stage (in the theatric sense) to frame (not in the criminal sense) to contain (…the resulting process in a possibly leaky environment) to join (…all these packages to form a new whole) to group (…all these packages) (As a bonus: ‘to environ’ exists, but it suffers from the same problem as ‘to envelop’.) Here are some nouns that might work: scene frame context union All of them are shorter than “environment”! :) What do you think? -- Ricardo