Hi Guix! In Guile, -L is a equivalent shorthand for adding to the %load-path variable. No actual files are evaluated. In Guix, -L actually evaluates files (at least in some capacity) to look for package definitions, allowing for uses like $ guix -L . <some_local_package>.
This has a performance impact as channels grow, so it would be nice if there was an alternative command line flag that matched Guile's behavior. To showcase the issue, here's three examples of "building" an already-built home environment. I would use $ guix repl instead, but -L in guix repl seems to match Guile's behavior, not Guix's. --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- # Baseline, no load path additions gibraltar :) rsent$ bash -c 'time guix home build rsent/home/minimal.scm' /gnu/store/5m062lg4f32j9hlirfkcp5141px6sgkv-home real 0m9.776s user 0m22.981s sys 0m0.233s # GUILE_LOAD_PATH, within margin of error of baseline gibraltar :) rsent$ GUILE_LOAD_PATH=. bash -c 'time guix home build rsent/home/minimal.scm' /gnu/store/5m062lg4f32j9hlirfkcp5141px6sgkv-home real 0m10.016s user 0m23.064s sys 0m0.186s # -L ., consistently ~25% longer to complete gibraltar :) rsent$ bash -c 'time guix home build -L . rsent/home/minimal.scm' /gnu/store/5m062lg4f32j9hlirfkcp5141px6sgkv-home real 0m12.791s user 0m29.569s sys 0m0.247s --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- At present one can set GUILE_LOAD_PATH manually to work around this issue. In my opinion this isn't very discoverable. Furthermore, it can't _cleanly_ handle cases when GUILE_LOAD_PATH is already set or needs multiple entries. It also makes certain commands with bash builtins (like time...) awkward since you have to enter a subshell. -- Take it easy, Richard Sent Making my computer weirder one commit at a time.
