Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> writes: > Hi Attila, > > Attila Lendvai <att...@lendvai.name> skribis: > >> i was writing the documentation of a guix.scm file, and i realized that >> there's an inconsistency among the three most used commands in this context: >> >> so, there's: >> - guix build --file >> - guix package --file >> >> and then there's: >> - guix environment --load >> - guix pack # has neither >> >> i'd propose to change guix environment to also use --file, but maybe i'm >> overlooking something, so, please speak up if you think it's a bad idea! >> >> i never used guix pack, but maybe that also deserves a --file argument? > > Good point. ‘--file’ predates ‘--manifest’; we could perhaps deprecate > ‘--file’ in favor of ‘--manifest’, though I think there’s one special > case not handled elsewhere: > > guix build -f foo.json > > We need to do something about it. > > ‘guix environment --load’ could be similarly deprecated, either to be > eventually removed or to be renamed to ‘--file’. > > Thoughts?
FWIW, I use 'guix build -f' all the time, 'guix package -f' occasionally, and 'guix environment -l' once in a while, too -- much more frequently than the manifest-oriented versions. (And I do find it confusing that 'environment' uses '-l' rather than '-f'; IMHO it would be a nice improvement for UI consistency to have '-f'/'--file' permitted as an alternative for '-l'/'--load' there.) I often write simple packages in individual files, outside of the guix repo or any kind of proper channel setup, and I don't see much point in requiring every such package to have its own single-package manifest, although it wouldn't be too difficult if it were required (just extra boilerplate for standalone package files).
