I would prefer to define constants/briefcase in terms of `(getenv "BRIEFCASE")`
and assert that `(f-exists? (getenv "BRIEFCASE"))`, in one location:
constants.el
TL;DR:
- Prefer `(getenv "BRIEFCASE")` to `(f-expand "~/briefcase")`. I should audit my
Emacs for references to ~/briefcase and replace those calls with `getenv`.
- Remove calls setting <nixpkgs> and <depot> and rely exclusively on <briefcase>
- Prefer ~/nixpkgs-channels to ~/nixpkgs.
Notes:
- I need a better way of calling `home-manager switch` that resides within my
briefcase
In the spirit of Marie Kondo, I'm tidying up!
TL;DR:
- Prefer .envrc `use_nix` and delete all dir-locals.nix files
- Remove ~all references to <nixpkgs>, <unstable>, <depot> and prefer
referencing each with briefcase.third_party.{pkgs,unstable,depot}
- Delete nixBufferFromShell function since I was only using that in
dir-locals.nix files
I'm currently setting NIX_PATH in ~/briefcase/shell.nix. This means when I call
`nix/rebuild-emacs` from a buffer that is inside the briefcase directory, the
command succeeds because NIX_PATH is properly defined. When I call
`nix/rebuild-emacs` from any other location it fails.
I'm hard-coding the NIX_PATH in this command so that I can call
`nix/rebuild-emacs` from any buffer that is currently active.
Renaming my mono-repo briefcase.
I first introduced this commit in master, but it introduced a bug where one of
two things would happen:
1. Emacs wouldn't start and would crash X.
2. Emacs would start but my keyboard wouldn't work.
I learned some valuable debugging skills in the process. Here are some of them:
When my keyboard was broken, I wanted to control my computer using my
laptop. Thankfully this is possible by using `x2x`, which forward X events from
the SSH client to the SSH host.
```shell
> # I'm unsure if this is the *exact* command
> ssh -X desktop x2x -west :0.0
```
Git commit-local bisecting. I didn't need to do a `git bisect` because I knew
which commit introduced the bug; it was HEAD, master. But -- as you can see from
the size of this commit -- there are many changes involved. I wanted to binary
search through the changes, so I did the following workflow using `magit`:
- git reset --soft HEAD^
- git stash 1/2 of the files changed
- re-run `nix-env -f ~/briefcase/emacs -i`
- restart X session
- If the problem persists, the bug exists in the non-stashed files. Repeat the
process until you find the bug.
In my case, the bug was pretty benign. Calling `(exwm/switch "Dotfiles")` at the
bottom of `window-manager.el` was failing because "Dotfiles" is the name of a
non-existent workspace; it should've been `(exwm/switch "Briefcase")`.
There may have been more problems. I changed a few other things along the way,
including exposing the env vars BRIEFCASE to `wpcarros-emacs` inside of
`emacs/default.nix`.
The important part is that this was a valuable learning opportunity, and I'm
glad that I'm walking away from the two days of "lost productivity" feeling
actually productive.
