On Sun, May 30, 2021 at 09:17:20PM +0200, Konrad Hinsen wrote: > How about pushing all the other package manager towards producing > sexp-packs, and helping them to get there?
I have a feeling they won't be that interested ;). My thoughts are that every software package simply consists of files that need to be compiled (if not interpreted) and be copied in place. As Guix takes care of the first and the last - the issue centers around building. The idea is to dress down these language specific builders, such as cargo, so you don't have all the included complexity. A sexp-pack would represent the most simple build instructions to build a package on its own. Now, of course the current guix-builders solve that too. But, what I am proposing is to split out the actual build step into a package definition, so as to present something simpler to Guix. I found a cargo -> ninja converter. It is that kind of idea. Guix would use ninja with rustc instead of cargo. A stripped down cargo could potentially work too - but cargo is a complex beast. A simplified build step would make it easier to troubleshoot these packages. See what I mean? Pj.