Re: How to install GWL?

[Roel Janssen]

Hi Ricardo,

On Wed, 2020-01-22 at 22:55 +0100, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> the GWL is intended to be an extension of Guix.  It uses Guix in two
> ways:
> 
> 1) it uses modules provided by Guix as one would use a
> library.  These
> include (guix gexp), (guix derivations), (guix monads), (guix store),
> etc.
> 
> 2) it uses Guix to install packages at runtime based on whatever
> workflow a user asks to be run.
> 
> The “gwl” package has the “guix” package among its inputs due to 1).
> This version of Guix will always be somewhat old, and older than the
> version of Guix used to install the GWL.  This is okay for using Guix
> modules, but it wouldn’t be okay for 2).

I initially wanted the GWL to be part of Guix, and I think that could
greatly simplify things.  So by installing GWL, you get the "workflow"
and "process" subcommands that work with the version of Guix returned
by:
$ guix --version

This would require us to package GWL in such a way that it doesn't have
Guix as one of its inputs.  Is that possible?

> How should the GWL be installed for maximum convenience and
> compatibility?  Does it make sense to install it as a channel so that
> it
> is tied to the user’s current version of Guix?  That would be pretty
> awkward and less convenient than just typing “guix install gwl”.

Or.. we merge the code from GWL into Guix, so it's automatically there;
no install needed.

I think the code is quite lightweight, and since it uses the Guix
modules, it is somewhat tied to a specific version of Guix.

What's the reason for not wanting GWL directly in Guix?

Kind regards,
Roel Janssen