Re: branch master updated: gnu: eudev: Use new package style.

[Attila Lendvai]

> > As for reverting it, I'm somewhat indifferent. I'm more interested in
> > the longer term cost of making changes like this than the temporary
> > drops in substitute availability.
> 
> You mean as a precedent for similar commits in the future or as a way
> of involuntarily breaking other packages? As already stated, I only
> pushed the commit because I was quite sure that all rebuilds would
> succeed.


a less frequent drop in substitute availability on master would considerably 
elevate my satisfaction with guix as a user. and in my reading that is the cost 
that Christopher talks about here.

it's rather disruptive on my workflow when i want to deploy something from my 
channel to my servers, but due to missing substitutes i need to edit the 
channels.scm file, pick a commit in the past... and make sure i pick it in sync 
with That-Other-Channel... then hope that the past commit i picked is covered 
by substitutes, because currently it's not predictable which commits are fully 
built by the build farm... then issue a `guix pull --allow-downgrades` to 
revert the guix channel... and then repeat it all if i picked a commit that is 
also not covered well...

my 0.02 is that it shouldn't be an either-or choice between 1) teams and topic 
branches, and 2) a core-updates-like staging branch. the latter should be 
employed, if for nothing else, to keep substitute availability high on master.

maybe with the addition of team branches a core-updates branch would be much 
more manageable? and it'd be easier to merge it more frequently? then it could 
be a home for commits that are semantically simple, but expensive to build.

-- 
• attila lendvai
• PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39
--
“If he controls your ideas he will soon control your actions, because every 
action is preceded by an idea.”
        — Silvano Arieti (1914–1981), 'The Will to Be Human'