hint: Run `guix search ... | less' to view all the results

[Jan Synacek]

Hello,

I'm going to give honest feedback, since I still care about some things.

I decided to check the new guix-1.1.0 and one of the first things that I ran 
was:

$ guix package -s firefox

The resulting message was infuriating to say the least. The code says:

(if (and (not (getenv "INSIDE_EMACS"))
    ...
      ...
      (display-hint (format #f (G_ "Run @code{~a ... | less} \
to view all the results.")
                            command)))

Seriously? Are you seriously forcing your users to either run emacs (or at least
to set the env variable) or use pipes to get the entire search result? 
That's just... backwards. Also, it feels like as if the author of that code sort
of assumed that whoever runs the command is stupid enough not to be able to deal
with long output. I'm sure that it wasn't meant like that.

Pretty please, fix this. Don't force your users into usage patterns that might
be completely foreign to them. Don't truncate output from programs by default.

There is a thread on guix-devel [1] titled "Medium-term road map". It contains:

> What would you like to see?

and

> ... Here are the areas I hope to focus on (and
> embarking as many of you as possible ...

and

> ... User interface.  Let’s get our act together with ‘guix shell’ and
>     ‘guix run-script’, and let’s address other annoyances that
>     newcomers keep stumbling upon! ...

I'm selectively quoting parts that I consider lead to the same direction - more
guix users and possibly developers.

Here's my suggestion: Don't make idiosyncratic decisions like the one I
described above. I don't think that your target audience is people completely
new to linux-like systems. I'm definitely not new. And I'm used to tools that
just simply (remember the KISS principle?) give me output when I run them.

Please, keep making guix (and guile) a great tool.

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-04/msg00400.html

Regards,
Jan