[cmm]

> you didn't even answer my question about Nix.

Your question was basically "is this DSL generally useful outside the domain it's been designed for?", so I thought it was rhetorical. That said, the domain of building, configuring and packaging software is not exactly tiny and is only getting bigger as time goes on (which is more bad than good in itself, but beside the point)!

How useful is the DSL implemented by Guix outside Guix itself? What's the comparative mental footprint of that vs. base Guile? Things get interesting when you think them through honestly and avoid stale slogans.

[medo-bear]

DSL implemented by Guix? Whatever do you mean?

Anyway, most people that I've come across who've used both nix and guix say that the learning curve for the latter is much less. HOWEVER, they usually stayed with nix because it had easier access to non-gnu stuff

[cmm]

> DSL implemented by Guix? Whatever do you mean?

From what I've seen (which matches my expectations going in), Guix relies on macros heavily enough to be considered a DSL on top of Guile (as opposed to "library" or "framework"). I could be wrong, of course.

[medo-bear]

Having macros does not equal having a DSL. In fact for me a big benefit of Guix is precisely that it doesn't use a DSL, but uses a well established and maleable language like Guile (Scheme)

[cmm]

> Having macros does not equal having a DSL.

Any set of non-trivial non-standard macros is a DSL, by definition. You have to know what a macro does and what it is for in order to even understand which of its similar-looking keyword or positional arguments are evaluated and which are not, how they relate to each other, etc, etc. I really don't see what you are arguing about here, or to what end.

[medo-bear]

> Any set of non-trivial non-standard macros is a DSL, by definition.

thats not entirely correct but even with that definition you should think about the non-standard part. guix uses standard guile syntax and has the whole guile language available to it.

anyway i think you are trying way too hard to equate nix and guile in a way thats simply doesnt click with me. maybe you invested too much time learning nix to concede that there is something better and simpler out there

[cmm]

> guix uses standard guile syntax and has the whole guile language available to it.

I feel I'm not getting through here. Let me try again: Guile is base Scheme plus some SRFIs plus some more extensions. None of this is useful outside the Guix bubble, because it is not really used for anything outside that bubble. I suppose pointing at a hundred Texmacs users who picked it up after being exposed to Guix would prove me wrong, but good luck with that.

> maybe you invested too much time learning nix

Maybe armchair psychoanalysis is extremely bad form. Note that I'm not trying to argue against Guix (or Guile, or GNU, or whatever) -- for all I know Guix is just great, and I know Guile is great (shall I rephrase and repeat this disclaimer again until it "clicks"?). I just tend to be triggered by idiotic sloganeering argumentation, especially when it is repeatedly reflexively employed as if it can substitute for a honest technical comparison.