[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.

[medo-bear]

> 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.

"idiotic sloganeering argumentation"?

> honest technical comparison

let me spell it out for you in another way

nix is developed in cpp (which itself is a huge collection of dsls) and you use its own (poorly documented) dsl to interact with it

guix is developed in guile and you use guile to interact with it

this alone implies that you get far more from just learning guile than nix dsl if all you want to do is package management

as for a one to one technical comparison, it is just a google search away: https://gist.github.com/abcdw/e54807b0a25e61fe2cf1bf8991410f...

>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.

you keep sloganeering that guile is useless outside of guix. i find it pretty funny how willing you are to twist the picture of reality in order for it to fit your world view. i already pointed you to another significant project that uses guile. here is the part in their documentaion spelling out their choice for guile: https://spritely.institute/static/papers/spritely-core.html#...

as for texmacs, i dont know where you are pulling your numbers from, but i for one used texmacs for writing papers before even considering taking on software development professionally. so please don't be triggered if i dont take your claim at face value

[cmm]

And let me make some further general observations here, while I'm unfortunately procrastinating.

People use software to solve their problems. The way you "sell" (in whatever sense) software to people is by showing them which of their problems it solves (they don't even have to be explicitly aware they have those problems in the first place, BTW) and how.

Nix(OS) is adopted first and foremost because it clearly solves some pressing problems. It allows you to have many development environments that don't stomp on each other, without managing a zoo of containers or VMs. It allows you to specify the operating system (or even just the user environment) you use, over as many machines as you need, deterministically and while ensuring that once you solve a problem it stays solved.

Those are real pain points, and since Nix solves them it would be used by people regardless of those people feel about Nix-the-language, because language appreciation is not the main reason people use it -- pain is.

Some goes for Guix, obviously.

So if your goal (whatever your motivation may be) is to explain to a Nix user how Guix is better, you need to point out something that is relevant to the person you are "selling" to and is fundamentally painful with Nix and painless with Guix. And, well, reaching first thing for "Guile is the official extension language of the GNU Project" does not do your marketing effort any favors.

[medo-bear]

> So if your goal (whatever your motivation may be) is to explain to a Nix user how Guix is better

I never said that that is my goal

[cmm]

> another significant project that uses guile.

That looks like a typical academic project that is overwhelmingly likely to die as soon as the grants run out, what am I missing? Where are the users?

> nix is developed in cpp

Who cares?

> its own (poorly documented) dsl to interact with it

Nix documentation is not by any means ideal and is kind of scattered, but calling it "poor" is a blatant misrepresentation.

> guix is developed in guile and you use guile to interact with it > this alone implies that you get far more from just learning guile than nix dsl > if all you want to do is package management

Argument by repetition, wonderful.

> as for a one to one technical comparison, it is just a google search away

That is... not good. And when a commenter pointed out its biases and misleading generalizations, the author invited them to go listen to a stream, lol, nope.

> you keep sloganeering that guile is useless outside of guix.

That's because it is, no need to get so defensive about it. It does not detract from its technical qualities! In any case, the goalpost got moved way far from the original "Guile iS tHe OfFiCiAl eXtEnSiOn LaNgUaGe Of ThE gNu PrOjEcT", wouldn't you say?

> forgive me if i dont take your claim at face value

"Guile is for all practical purposes useless outside the Guix ecosystem" is my null hypothesis here and so far I stand by it. "Proving" that would be proving a negative, so I don't intend to even attempt that. It should, however, be fairly easy to disprove if you have data. Show us how learning Guile (or any Lisp that is not Elisp really -- sad!) is likely to be worthwhile for a "normal person" apart from using it for Guix.

[medo-bear]

if you know nix DSL but dont know cpp (whatever it means to know cpp) then the whole nix internals are just a black box to you. this is simply not the case with guix. if you cant see the benefit of guix/guile relationship here then there is not much more i can say to you

anyway as i said at the start this whole thing is just heads banging against a wall. i have no problems with you holding your views. it just happens that i disagree with them. if you expect of me to promote the virtues of lisp to you then im sorry but thats not gonna happen. you can do your own discovery. if you dont know then you dont know :)

[cmm]

> the whole nix internals are just a black box to you.

Yes, and just as well. Modern software is a barely-holding-together tower of abstractions as it is. Do you find yourself looking at the C source of Guile's runtime often? Or Glibc? The Linux kernel? Intel microcode? Aren't you glad you don't have to?

(Nixpkgs, on the other hand, is very accessible and many parts of it make for great reading)

> if you expect of me to promote the virtues of lisp to you then im sorry but thats not gonna happen.

No, I hope (in vain, looks like) that you'll start making some sense and stop using and then desperately defending stupid arguments.