[atemerev]

I need CUDA drivers for what I am working with, and I have found no way to install it in Guix. Otherwise, it looks interesting enough.

(Sexps are usually not my first choice, I think it is a "lazy option" for people who do not want to write parsers / design their own syntax. Even then, they are better than current Nix expressions).

[zeveb]

> Sexps are usually not my first choice, I think it is a "lazy option" for people who do not want to write parsers / design their own syntax.

There are some real advantages to having one universal syntax: witness the explosion in XML and, later, JSON (both of which are generally inferior to S-expressions[1]). It'd be pretty great for one person to write one parser, and then everyone forever after to be able to use it. We'd be able to focus on semantics and not on syntax.

[1] Although it is nice that JSON supports first-class associative arrays.

[corysama]

AFAICT, there are 2 major differences between Nix and Guix. Language choice is the obvious one. The other is that Guix takes a hard-line stance on the GNU philosophy and therefore refuses to distribute pre-compiled binaries. I don't think CUDA will ever be an option on Guix.

[geokon]

Pretty sure there is nothing language-wise stopping anyone from hosting a separate repository with pre-compiled binaries.

It's a volunteer-run service. It makes sense they don't want to host your proprietary binaries

[gnufx]

Does something actually stop you packaging proprietary binaries, perhaps privately, for Guix? It's clearly better to say No, but CUDA is a case where that's difficult.

(I don't see what's wrong with adopting sexps to avoid dealing with custom syntax -- quite the opposite,)

[wcummings]

The kernel it ships with won't load blobs.

[gnufx]

OK, there's a distinction between the GuixSD free software distribution and Guix package management. I'm surprised you can't build and use a non-linux-libre kernel with GuixSD, though; that presumably excludes even free additions, like Lustre, unless someone has done the forward porting work. (One of the recent HPC-ish presentations on Guix mentioned nvidia stuff -- I don't remember which.)

[agumonkey]

Some academics say that sexp allow to focus on what's important: semantics. I kinda agree with that, so many time, effort is wasted on syntax that moves, and only make ideas further apart.

Anyway, thanks for the answer

[atemerev]

Well, right, but we are not talking about an academic paper here, we talk about practically convenient language. If syntax is unimportant, we could leave Nix files as is -- semantically, it is a good programming language. But judging from the comments, I am not the only one who thinks that syntax and overall esthetics are important.