Proposal: Don't read environment files by default

[lennart spitzner]

On 28/03/2019 13:24, Herbert Valerio Riedel wrote:
> [..] We
> want to be able to provide a stateful interface providing the common
> idiom users from non-Nix UIs are used to, and which `cabal` and `ghc`
> already provided in the past; [..]

On 28/03/2019 19:33, Michael Peyton Jones wrote:
> +1 to the `cabal ghc`/`cabal ghci` etc. solution. This is the approach used
> by many other tools that handle this kind of thing. For example:
> - nix-shell
> - virtualenv
> - rbenv
> - sbt
> - jenv

On 28/03/2019 20:33, Herbert Valerio Riedel wrote:
> ..just because everyone else does it this way doesn't mean that it's the
> best way.. I'd argue it might be a sign of lack of imagination  ;-)


So we want to provide the common idiom users are used to, exactly up to
the point where we don't, at which point what users are used to suddenly
becomes irrelevant? Because.. imagination. Smileyface.


On 28/03/2019 13:24, Herbert Valerio Riedel wrote:
> However, if we now had to explicitly pass a flag to ghc in order to have
> it pick up ghc env files

False dichotomy. Matt's proposal was to make the feature opt-in. This
can, but need not be, via a commandline flag. There are other, less
obtrusive ways of allowing users to opt-in.

The behaviour of the cabal maintainers is hurtful to the ecosystem, and it
displays disrespect towards their own userbase. Herbert's arguments
presented in this thread are logically faulty. The cabal maintainers have
assumed an arrogant position of prescribing their perceived "best way"
despite overwhelming proof to the contrary.

+1 to Matt's proposal

-- lennart