bug#55013: Guix-emacs doesn't work

[Ryan Prior]

------- Original Message -------
On Monday, March 20th, 2023 at 7:09 PM, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> 
wrote:


> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> this no longer seems to be a problem. Can you please confirm that this
> issue can be closed now?

I can confirm that the emacs-guix package is still broken.

## Steps to reproduce
1. launch Emacs in a container:
  $ guix shell -C --no-cwd --expose=/gnu --expose=/var --share=/tmp  -E DISPLAY 
emacs emacs-guix -- emacs
2. run M-x guix-installed-packages

### Expected result
A list of installed packages should appear.

### Actual result
In *Messages* buffer:
> guix-geiser-eval: Error in evaluating guile expression: 
> ice-9/boot-9.scm:1685:16: In procedure raise-exception:
> Unbound variable: %max-returned-list-size

## My Guix version
$ guix --version | grep guix
guix (GNU Guix) 51f8a7aced70b7f79037bd99019dddaea07ced25

## Discussion

When I was working to create an Emacs Guix package 
(https://github.com/ryanprior/emacs-guix-packaging) to support my own 
workflows, folks were critical of how I run Guix commands in the shell and 
parse the output instead of building on the Emacs Guix package and its Guile 
REPL approach. But in practice, this package has never worked for me, I always 
get REPL errors.

Since then, I have often discussed emacs-guix with other Emacs users in the 
community and thus realized I'm far from the only one who's never once got it 
to work. Today, despite the efforts of multiple engineers, it remains 
reproducibly broken.

My inclination would be to remove entirely the dependency on Geiser and the 
Guix REPL, opting instead to connect to a guix-ui service over a stable HTTP 
API. The API endpoints would be documented and tested as part of the formal 
interface to Guix, and the Emacs package would become a client of that 
interface.

Whether you like my alternative or not, do most Guix maintainers have 
confidence in the current approach and think emacs-guix just needs a bugfix 
here or there, or does anyone else get the impression that it's unsound and 
needs a new approach?

Ryan