[Nix-dev] nixos-rebuild --show-trace should be default

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

Marc Weber wrote:

>> Marc Weber wrote:
>>
>>> Does someone mind my comitting this patch?
>> I disabled stacktraces by default because they're not very helpful (and rather
>> intimidating) to the average user.
> 
> That's right. Let's assume there is an average user.
> Let's assume he runs nixos-rebuild test.
> Let's assume there is an error.
> Let's assume he dosen't know what he did wrong.

Hiding the trace by default is also intended as an incentive to us developers to
make sure that the relevent information is in the error message (which is always
shown), rather than buried deep in the stack trace.  For instance, if you define
an undeclared option, this is shown in the error message - you don't need to use
--show-trace.

> What will you tell him ?
> 
> Run nixos-rebuild test --show-trace

This is why nixos-rebuild actually says:

  ...
  (use `--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/