From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark H Weaver Subject: Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2015 10:37:07 -0400 Message-ID: <87613l6kq4.fsf@netris.org> References: <55EE0ADD.9050701@gmail.com> <87pp1tnsna.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59392) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZK2O-0004d0-6v for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 08 Sep 2015 10:38:21 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZK2J-0006PN-BY for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 08 Sep 2015 10:38:18 -0400 In-Reply-To: <87pp1tnsna.fsf@gnu.org> ("Ludovic \=\?utf-8\?Q\?Court\=C3\=A8s\=22'\?\= \=\?utf-8\?Q\?s\?\= message of "Tue, 08 Sep 2015 11:54:01 +0200") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org, Craig Barnes ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Court=C3=A8s) writes: > Craig Barnes skribis: > >> Some time ago I asked on IRC about a guix users wiki. Someone suggest >> that I propose one here (sorry it's taken so long). >> >> I think that a wiki would be a good complement to the manual, which >> while quite complete, lacks exhaustive examples (which would be >> impractical). > > I have mixed feelings. There are several issues with a Wiki: one can > hardly know which version of the software it=E2=80=99s talking about (whe= reas > the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed > version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, > unmaintained, and often misleading. Agreed. There are a small handful of highly successful wikis, but most of them are as Ludovic describes. Maintaining a good wiki requires a great deal of work by experts to monitor changes, fix things up, and to update the wiki as needed when Guix is updated to avoid giving users outdated advice. I suspect it only makes sense when the scale of the documentation and the number of people involved is at least two, maybe three orders of magnitude greater than the Guix project. > I would strongly encourage people to help fix the manual as a first > step. If information that a user deems useful is missing from the > manual, then it=E2=80=99s a bug. I=E2=80=99m willing to make it as simpl= e as possible > to fix the manual. But really, the manual should have all the examples > necessary for people to understand how to tweak things. I agree with Ludovic. The manual would require far less work from our small pool of experts to maintain than a wiki, and has a couple of inherent advantages: * the manual is stored in the same git repository as Guix itself, so they can be kept in sync at all times. * the manual can easily be read and modified while offline. > There might be cases where specific information doesn=E2=80=99t quite fit= in the > manual, like, say, instructions for a specific laptop model. These > could go in a wiki. > > Overall, I think it=E2=80=99s fine to have stuff at > for instance, but the manual > should clearly remain the primary source of documentation, without any > ambiguity. +1 Mark