Re: Projects for the Google Summer of Code

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,


On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 at 16:52, Kyle <kyle@posteo.net> wrote:

> One idea might be to write a conda importer which looks at the
> versions of software in the resulting environment and tries to make
> feasible package variants of make a manifest which matches the
> existing conda environment as close as possible.

Do you mean, from ’conda env export’ Which outputs something like, 

    name: justnumpy
    channels:
      - defaults
    dependencies:
      - _libgcc_mutex=0.1=main
      - _openmp_mutex=5.1=1_gnu
      - blas=1.0=mkl
      - libuuid=1.41.5=h5eee18b_0
      - mkl=2021.4.0=h06a4308_640
      - mkl-service=2.4.0=py310h7f8727e_0
      - mkl_fft=1.3.1=py310hd6ae3a3_0
      - mkl_random=1.2.2=py310h00e6091_0
      - ncurses=6.3=h5eee18b_3
      - numpy=1.23.4=py310hd5efca6_0
      - numpy-base=1.23.4=py310h8e6c178_0
      - ...
      - ...

transform this into some Guix manifest.scm?  Well, indeed, it could help
people for transitioning.


> Another idea would be to create a python package for working with Guix
> more directly from inside their preferred language environment instead
> of through the shell. I also wouldn't mind it if such a thing existed
> for R as well.

Do you mean ’guix.install()’ from r-guix-install?

https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/guix.install/index.html

How do you install Python packages from the Python REPL?


Cheers,
simon

PS:

>                                                  Simon thought often
> the python version usually didn't matter, but it makes users a lot
> less woosy to stick with software combinations they have already
> tested.

This is out of context. :-)  For the context, see [1].

Well, if you have only one Python version, you only test against this
one, so being able to combine on the fly the matrix of Python versions
is not so much important – it is a collective practise inherited from
the “unstable” Python ecosystem and I am doubtful about its relevancy
concerning referencing software for reproducing.  Now Conda is more than
10 years and very very broadly used, so if its specification using
version labels and relying on some matrix of Python versions would be
enough for reproducibility, then I would have never landed in Guix. ;-)

1: https://yhetil.org/guix/86pma2t3jd.fsf@gmail.com

My 2 cents. :-)