Re: A Forum for Guix Users

[Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl>]

On Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 02:10:49PM -0700, Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution. wrote:
> Hi Robby and Sarthak,
> 
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 7:17 AM Robby Zambito <contact@robbyzambito.me> wrote:
> >
> > I personally think that it would be wiser to improve the documentation
> > relating to the mailing lists and IRC logs
> 
> I'm technically one of the administrators of forums.debian.net and
> would not recommend web-based "forums" to projects that do not have
> them. They are hard to search and even harder to police. Also, the
> software tends to be based on dated technologies. There are better
> ways to help people in need.
 
Thanks to Arun we rolled our own issue tracker and knowledge base with

https://issues.genenetwork.org/

Written in Guile the interface is simple, the backend is simply a git
repo (can be hosted anywhere), and it uses a xapian search indexer.
Personally I think this is an awesome way of tracking information and
allows reorganising information and rewriting history. The tags are
arbitrary - though we clearly focussed on an issue tracker here.

If the xapian indexer also analysed mailing list output (through
publicinbox, for example) and maybe debbugs and IRC logs it would be
complete. 

https://public-inbox.org/README.html

Key thing is that people can post, answer questions, track issues etc.
and make it all findable. Fun - but probably useless - fact is that we
can also serve it over gemini.

> The points that were mentioned resonate with me, but I actually find
> Guix's documentation quite good already (possibly even second after
> Arch).

+1. 

> We have five broad issues, however:
> 
> 1. Our community is small, and possibly shrinking.

I doubt that is true in absolute terms. You should see where we were
10 years ago :). Guile and Racket made impressive gains the last
years.

In relative terms we can't compete and should not aim
to do so with either Guix or Guile.

> 2. Scheme is a niche language that is not being promoted enough.

Lisp will always be niche. Why would it change in half a century? The
power of Lisp comes from its syntax - but it is a barrier to entry at
the same time. I am always amazed they came up with that early in CS
history.

> 3. Guix uses a complex file layout that's different from most other
> distributions.

We have the fhs bindings. But yeah, that is another barrier.

> 4. Our master branch often suffers from small defects that prevent
> declared systems (and home configurations) from being updated in full.

I think the stable releases try to address that. But I agree, Guix is
a moving target. I don't see that changing much. 

> 5. Substitute availability is good, but download speeds can be poor
> due to peering issues.

That is a matter of money, I guess.

> Personally, I think that promoting GNU Guile in other settings has
> perhaps the best potential to lower our barriers to entry. People
> should not be writing shell scripts in 2023.

They always will, including me. I am, however, giving Guile talks and
promote rash and gash. I am submitting a talk to ICFP Seattle.

https://icfp23.sigplan.org/home/declmed-2023

You can still do that too. I know they have slots.

> Other than that, everyone can make themselves available to help folks
> with difficulties on the existing mailing lists.
> 
> Everyone writes something silly from time to time. It's not a big
> deal. The helping hand is what counts!

Thanks!

Pj.