From: Xinglu Chen <public@yoctocell.xyz>
To: ~abcdw/rde-devel@lists.sr.ht
Subject: Naming conventions
Date: Fri, 07 May 2021 20:03:22 +0200
Message-ID: <87y2cqifpx.fsf@yoctocell.xyz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Since Guix Home is still in early phases of development, I thought it
would be a good idea to bring up the problem of naming things before we
have too many services.

This is what the situation looks like right now:

* Service types are prefixed with with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99,
  e.g. =E2=80=98home-zsh-service-type=E2=80=99.

* Configuration record types are also prefixed with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99,
  e.g. =E2=80=98home-emacs-configuration=E2=80=99.

* Extensions for other services don=E2=80=99t really have a consistent nami=
ng
  scheme, some are prefixed with =E2=80=98add-=E2=80=99, e.g. =E2=80=98add-=
emacs-packages=E2=80=99,
  while others are prefixed with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99 and end with the n=
ame of the
  target service, e.g. =E2=80=98home-gnupg-activation-service=E2=80=99 prov=
ides
  extension for =E2=80=98home-activation-service-type=E2=80=99.

One question is: When should we prefix things with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99?

Some of the private procedures are prefixed with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99, t=
his seems a
little unnecessary since they won=E2=80=99t be used on other modules, and u=
sers
certainly won=E2=80=99t try to use them, unless they really know what they =
are
doing.

The configuration record types, e.g. =E2=80=98home-gnupg-configuration=E2=
=80=99 don=E2=80=99t
necessarily have to be prefixed with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99.  One of the t=
hings we
would like to avoid is code duplication with Guix proper,  if Guix
proper already has a =E2=80=98mcron-configuration=E2=80=99 record type, we =
would like to
be able to just reuse it instead of creating our own
=E2=80=98home-mcron-configuration=E2=80=99 record type.  It is the service =
type that
actually controls how a record type is going to end up in the user=E2=80=99s
home environment/operating system.  I think it makes sense to drop the
=E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99 prefix from the configuration record types.

Guix System already has a service for Getmail (gnu services getmail),
this could just as well be used in Guix Home, and we could just add a
=E2=80=98home-getmail-service-type=E2=80=99 and some helper functions to ma=
ke it put the
configuration in the correct place instead of having to re-write a
=E2=80=98home-getmail-configuration=E2=80=99 record type

Another thing I have noticed is that the names for the Shepherd services
also start with =E2=80=98home-=E2=80=99, e.g. =E2=80=98home-mcron=E2=80=99.=
  This seems unnecessary
since running =E2=80=98herd status=E2=80=99 will only display the services =
for the
current user, system services will only be displayed if =E2=80=98herd statu=
s=E2=80=99 is
run as root.

As a side-note: When merging with Guix proper, should we create a new
(gnu home-services) namespace or should we just put the services in the
(gnu services) namespace?  With the latter, we could for example just
add =E2=80=98home-mcron-service-type=E2=80=99 to (gnu services mcron) and m=
odify
=E2=80=98mcron-shepherd-services=E2=80=99 to use a different G-expression t=
o start the
mcron daemon depending on if it is a system service or a user service.

Have a good weekend!