Re: Are declarative app configs worth it?

[Sergey Trofimov]

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

> Sergey Trofimov <sarg@sarg.org.ru> writes:
>
> > - adding it to guix increases maintenance burden: new versions 
> > could
> >  add or remove config options
>
> This is why there should be automated tests.  There are too few 
> of them.

that adds up to the pile of boilerplate to implement a simple 
config. If guix mandates it for new packages, it'll raise the bar 
for contribution even higher than it already is.

> > - it bloats guix: imagine if we add configs for every
> >   user-configurable app
>
> That would be nice.
>
> If we started to accept the term bloat we could easily apply it 
> to
> anything in Guix: all that R stuff?  Bloat!  All that bioinfo 
> stuff?
> Bloat!

imo, R and bioinfo should be in channels.

> > - such configs are not easily transferrable: if I were to use 
> > the
> >   same app in non-guix env, I'd have to maintain 2 configs
>
> We are generating configuration files from our config languages. 
> So you
> would only need to generate them and copy them for your non-guix
> environment.

Sure, that's why I wrote "not easily". My non-guix env is a 
corporate Mac laptop. Currently I just clone my dotfiles, symlink 
required configs and it's done. I can make changes in both 
environments and there is no unnecessary "compiling" step 
involved.

> > Another recent example is `oci-container-configuration` which 
> > defines
> > a subset of docker-cli startup arguments. The problem is that 
> > `docker
> > run` command has 96 options and the configuration only uses a 
> > handful,
> > lacking a way to provide the remaining ones.
>
> All config bindings need to have an escape hatch.
That would be great.