On 2019-03-27 16:00, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
> 
> Pierre wrote:
>> Finally, as I mentioned above with the completion systems that we have,
>> we've got nothing to lose in having long names.

Reading the arguments of Ricardo I changed my mind and support keeping
the variable names short.

> 
> swedebugia wrote:
>> Good useability is important and cryptic acronyms are not something to
>> expose to the user if possible to avoid IMO.
> 
>> Maybe this is where we need to discuss what our target audience is?
>> Nerds only? […]
> 
> This is a false dichotomy, in my opinion.  Good usability is not at odds
> with using short package names.  I also think that the length of package
> names is not going to be a deciding factor for somebody who is not a
> “nerd”, so let’s not go down this tangent please.  There are different
> interfaces to package managers, and we’re currently not offering fully
> functional interfaces that would be more suitable for people without a
> “techie” background.  If you want to make Guix more accessible *that’s*
> a screw to turn, not the length of package names.

Thanks for sharing this. I regret having written this as a dichotomy.
I'm actually very happy with guix overall and the guix-web frontend is
awesome. :)
I'm sorry if I added tension to this discussion. I will try expressing
myself less confrontationally going forward.

> 
> Completion should not be used as an excuse to use long package names.
> For one, not everyone is using Bash, so not everyone benefits from our
> Bash completions.  (Some shells can reuse Bash completions but this does
> not invalidate the point.)

I agree.

> 
> The package name is just an identifier for command line interaction
> purposes.  There is no reason why it should be descriptive – after all,
> that’s what the package description is used for.  Users can easily find
> the package they are interested in by using the search feature.  That
> will give them the short name by which they can refer to the package.
> Having that short name be long serves little purpose.

I agree.

Would you agree that we try to strike a compromise with short package
variable names, synopsis' and longer descriptions? Should we state this
clearly in the documentation for packagers?

I guess a GUI-search would work like guix-web and search all three for
hits and displaying the results.

-- 
Cheers Swedebugia