Pros and cons of Emacs package management through Guix instead of package.el

[Pierre Neidhardt]

I am thinking of using Guix to manage all my Emacs packages.  I can
think of several benefits:

- Guix provides (possibly) more stable versions.

- Guix can update all packages without hanging Emacs.

- Guix can update all packages from the commandline, i.e. it can be scripted.

- Guix can rollback Emacs packages.  Emacs package updates and system
  program updates can belong to the same transaction: this enforces the
  integrity of the software stack at the user level.

- Guix allows for sharing package files among several users on a multi-user 
system.

And possible downsides:

- package.el provides more up-to-date packages through MELPA but if we
  really want to be more cutting edge (i.e. for development), we are
  usually better off cloning the repository anyway.

- Guix is basically duplicating the effort of (M)ELPA.

What's your take on this?

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt

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