Re: Recommend order for package fields?

[zimoun]

Hi,

On Wed, 17 Nov 2021 at 12:18, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> I don’t think so; examples in the manual, ‘guix import’, etc. are
> already mostly consistent.

>From my point of view, an explicit recommendation is always better
than an implicit one.  If it is already consistent and defacto
ordering, it costs nothing to write down such as a recommendation and
it helps, IMHO.

(On a side note, IMHO, similar issues with packages sorted or not
depending on the phase of the Moon, mostly, or with inputs sorted or
not depending on the phase of the Moon, mostly. ;-))


> > Especially when there is probably some issues with the semantic, for
> > instance, compare [1] corner cases:
>
> It’s not a corner case, it’s lexical scoping.  :-)

Thanks for explaining. :-)  Let rephrase: compare different behaviours
[1] depending on lexical scope which is odd in the framework of
"declarative".  Anyway, your point is: it is a feature, not an issue,
IIUC.


> > If yes, why not add a checker for “guix lint” for warning that?  And
> > obviously, it could be nice to have an automatic tool for formatting;
> > something similar as etc/indent-code.el for ordering packages. ;-)
>
> I think ‘guix style’ should eventually be improved to replace
> etc/indent-code.el.  We could augment it with specific stylers, such as
> alphabetically sorting inputs.

Ah yes I have forgotten about "guix style".  :-)


Cheers,
simon