Re: Using --manfistest with <profile>/manifest files

[elaexuotee]

> 1. We can only approximate that actual profile content; storing
>    an approximate ‘manifest.scm’ along with the profile would IMO be
>    deceptive.

Is this a technical barrier or a pragmatic one?

If it is the former, then I don't quite grok why. I explain my reasoning in
great detail in a previous reply, but the gist is this: generating profiles is
deterministic, no? That is, given the inputs of channel revision, command line
invocation, and any referred-to external files, then `guix time-machine' is
enough to recreate a profile, no?

If the problem is of pragmatics, then at the very least I would be interested
in hearing a delineation of the challenges. I think this could be helpful for
the discussion though.

> Yeah, I think our goal is just to provide a tool to migrate from the
> “imperative” way to the declarative way.  Once people have gotten
> started with manifests, they no longer need that migration tool.

Would you mind commenting on the use case that I started this thread with?
Specifically, I was trying to `guix pack' a `guix environment'. The equivalent
is straightforward for purely --ad-hoc environments but not otherwise.

Personally, I have already encountered several instances where this would have
been useful. I also think it would be just plain cool to have the ability to
pack up, containerize, and share arbitrary profiles with non-guix users.

Thoughts?

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