Dear Bruno, Thank you for your feedback.
On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 01:10, Bruno Haible <br...@clisp.org> wrote: > > Another way to do software development is with ‘guix environment’: > > > > https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Development.html > > > > For example, if you want to hack on Gettext, run: > > > > guix environment gettext > > > > That spawns a shell containing all the development tools and environment > > variables to hack on gettext. > > Sounds very interesting. But for the moment, I use guix only as a > test platform. Note that Guix (as package manager) provides 3 nice features for development as a test platform: manifest, profile and channel. 1. Manifests allow you to specify the packages you want to install. For example, this command installs make, gcc-toolchain and gdb in the default profile (~/.guix-profile). guix package -m /path/to/my/manifest.scm --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- (specifications->manifest '("make" "gcc-toolchain" "gdb")) --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- And note that "version" or "outputs" (debug) can be specified. Well, manifest can be used with almost all the Guix commands. And manifests compose: "-m m1.scm -m m2.scm". https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/guix.html#profile_002dmanifest 2. Profiles allow different versions of the same tool without any conflict. For example, let consider you would like to develop using GCC@9 for one project and GCC@8 for another; then: guix install gcc-toolchain@9 -p /path/to/my/gcc-9 guix install gcc-toolchain@8 -p /path/to/my/gcc-8 Then, for example let prepend the environment variables defined by the packages gcc-toolchain@9. eval `guix package --search-paths=prefix -p /path/to/gcc-9` which gcc Note that profiles compose too (see --allow-collisions; warning). Moreover, the regular packages used to develop need time to time to be temporary extended; without being really "installed": guix environment -m /path/to/my/manifest-dev-9.scm --ad-hoc libfoo And options like '--pure' or '--container' are very useful for testing. And when finished, 'libfoo' becomes a dead link in the store (guix gc --list-dead) and so would be garbage collected if needed; the command "guix environment" is very handy when testing and developing, iMHO. 3. Channels allow to track the exact version of the tools. For example, the version used: guix describe -f channels > /path/to/my/channel.scm Then weeks (or month) or on another machine, it is possible to re-install the same packages, for example: guix pull -C /path/to/my/channel.scm guix package -m /path/to/my/manifest.scm -p /path/to/my/olds Note that it is not necessary required to pull back at one specific Guix version for re-installing packages of this very specific Guix version. It is possible to temporarily re-state another Guix version without modifying the current one (see Inferior): guix time-machine -C /path/to/my/channel.scm \ -- package -m /path/to/my/manifest.scm -p /path/to/my/olds This is equivalent to the 2 commands above but without "updating" the current Guix. I do not know if it is useful. Or if it helps to describe Guix as a test platform. The manual is hairy -- from my point of view -- and because Guix re-frames good ol' concepts, it is not easy to find the way. Best regards, simon