* Should we start a Guix users wiki? @ 2015-09-07 22:08 Craig Barnes 2015-09-08 8:01 ` Amirouche Boubekki 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès 0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Craig Barnes @ 2015-09-07 22:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: guix-devel Hi Guix, 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 found myself searching through the mailing list archives for solutions, and trawling through relevant threads on a number of occasions. If this information was organized in a dedicated wiki it would be much more accessible and would make it maintainable. As an example, Arch(Gnu)Linux's wiki is one of it's stronger points. I often end up there when searching for answers to application questions for other distros. I would be more than happy to help maintain a Guix(SD) wiki, if needed I would be happy to host it somewhere. What do you think? Cheers Craig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-07 22:08 Should we start a Guix users wiki? Craig Barnes @ 2015-09-08 8:01 ` Amirouche Boubekki 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Amirouche Boubekki @ 2015-09-08 8:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Craig Barnes; +Cc: guix-devel, guix-devel-bounces+amirouche=hypermove.net Le 2015-09-08 00:08, Craig Barnes a écrit : > Hi Guix, > > 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 found myself searching through the mailing list archives for > solutions, and trawling through relevant threads on a number of > occasions. If this information was organized in a dedicated wiki it > would be much more accessible and would make it maintainable. And it will make the community more visible. > As an example, Arch(Gnu)Linux's wiki is one of it's stronger points. I > often end up there when searching for answers to application questions > for other distros. Same over the gentoo/emacs wiki. > I would be more than happy to help maintain a Guix(SD) wiki, if needed > I > would be happy to host it somewhere. It seems to me that it was kind of some trouble that the wiki was hosted by a third party at gentoo. > > What do you think? > The only thing that I can think of, is that given the fact that guix will be soon distributed over gnunet. It makes more sens to have the official wiki also hosted on gnunet and make a copy of it available for reading on the www. Sure it's not done yet, and it needs to be coded. I think that we have all the pieces to make something like that happen. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-07 22:08 Should we start a Guix users wiki? Craig Barnes 2015-09-08 8:01 ` Amirouche Boubekki @ 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-08 12:40 ` Thompson, David 2015-09-08 14:37 ` Mark H Weaver 1 sibling, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Courtès @ 2015-09-08 9:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Craig Barnes; +Cc: guix-devel Hi, Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> 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’s talking about (whereas the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, unmaintained, and often misleading. 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’s a bug. I’m willing to make it as simple as possible to fix the manual. But really, the manual should have all the examples necessary for people to understand how to tweak things. There might be cases where specific information doesn’t quite fit in the manual, like, say, instructions for a specific laptop model. These could go in a wiki. Overall, I think it’s fine to have stuff at <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Guix/> for instance, but the manual should clearly remain the primary source of documentation, without any ambiguity. So, what would you like to add to the manual? :-) Thanks, Ludo’. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès @ 2015-09-08 12:40 ` Thompson, David 2015-09-08 14:37 ` Mark H Weaver 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Thompson, David @ 2015-09-08 12:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Ludovic Courtès; +Cc: guix-devel, Craig Barnes On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 5:54 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote: > Hi, > > Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> 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’s talking about (whereas > the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed > version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, > unmaintained, and often misleading. > > 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’s a bug. I’m willing to make it as simple as possible > to fix the manual. But really, the manual should have all the examples > necessary for people to understand how to tweak things. +1 - Dave ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-08 12:40 ` Thompson, David @ 2015-09-08 14:37 ` Mark H Weaver 2015-09-10 10:47 ` Craig Barnes 1 sibling, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Mark H Weaver @ 2015-09-08 14:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Ludovic Courtès; +Cc: guix-devel, Craig Barnes ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes: > Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> 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’s talking about (whereas > 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’s a bug. I’m willing to make it as simple 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’t quite fit in the > manual, like, say, instructions for a specific laptop model. These > could go in a wiki. > > Overall, I think it’s fine to have stuff at > <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Guix/> for instance, but the manual > should clearly remain the primary source of documentation, without any > ambiguity. +1 Mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-08 14:37 ` Mark H Weaver @ 2015-09-10 10:47 ` Craig Barnes 2015-09-10 13:58 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-10 15:35 ` Cook, Malcolm 0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Craig Barnes @ 2015-09-10 10:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: guix-devel On 08/09/15 15:37, Mark H Weaver wrote: > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes: > >> Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> 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’s talking about (whereas >> the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed >> version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, >> unmaintained, and often misleading. In order to make sure that examples in the manual aren't broken, wouldn't something equivalent to python doctests be necessary to ensure this? I think it would be worse to have a broken example in the manual than somewhere else. If the number of examples grow this could be equally unmaintainable. > 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’s a bug. I’m willing to make it as simple 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’t quite fit in the >> manual, like, say, instructions for a specific laptop model. These >> could go in a wiki. >> >> Overall, I think it’s fine to have stuff at >> <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Guix/> for instance, but the manual >> should clearly remain the primary source of documentation, without any >> ambiguity. Thank you for your feedback on this, I agree with your points, and that in this case the manual is the better place for this information. Going back to my original problem of finding information that isn't currently in the manual, it would be great if there where an easier way to search / browse the mailing list archives. This would make extracting great examples to add to the manual easier. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Cheers Craig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-10 10:47 ` Craig Barnes @ 2015-09-10 13:58 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-10 15:35 ` Cook, Malcolm 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Courtès @ 2015-09-10 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Craig Barnes; +Cc: guix-devel Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> skribis: > On 08/09/15 15:37, Mark H Weaver wrote: >> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes: [...] >>> I have mixed feelings. There are several issues with a Wiki: one can >>> hardly know which version of the software it’s talking about (whereas >>> the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed >>> version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, >>> unmaintained, and often misleading. > In order to make sure that examples in the manual aren't broken, > wouldn't something equivalent to python doctests be necessary to ensure > this? I think it would be worse to have a broken example in the manual > than somewhere else. If the number of examples grow this could be > equally unmaintainable. Good point. Examples that were added lately have been put in separate files so that we can at least manually test that they work as advertised. Now, I think it would be good to add targets in ‘doc.am’ to automatically check the examples. I think these wouldn’t be in-depth tests. For example, for OS declarations, we could simply make sure that ‘guix system build EXAMPLE --dry-run’ passes. Likewise for the ‘guix environment --load’ example. WDYT? I could add a couple of rules in ‘doc.am’ so that people have a template to reuse when they add new examples. (I do think we need VM- or container-based tests of complete systems, but that’s a separate issue IMO.) > Going back to my original problem of finding information that isn't > currently in the manual, it would be great if there where an easier way > to search / browse the mailing list archives. This would make > extracting great examples to add to the manual easier. Any suggestions > would be appreciated. There’s a search facility at <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?idxname=guix-devel> that is not perfect, but a good start. Alternately there’s the GMane mirror at <http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.guix.devel>, which supports both searching and browsing. The email client that I use, Gnus, also provides handy search facility and the ability to browse the complete history of a GMane group over NNTP. HTH, Ludo’. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* RE: Should we start a Guix users wiki? 2015-09-10 10:47 ` Craig Barnes 2015-09-10 13:58 ` Ludovic Courtès @ 2015-09-10 15:35 ` Cook, Malcolm 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Cook, Malcolm @ 2015-09-10 15:35 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'Craig Barnes', guix-devel@gnu.org > -----Original Message----- > From: guix-devel-bounces+mec=stowers.org@gnu.org [mailto:guix-devel- > bounces+mec=stowers.org@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Craig Barnes > Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 5:47 AM > To: guix-devel@gnu.org > Subject: Re: Should we start a Guix users wiki? > > On 08/09/15 15:37, Mark H Weaver wrote: > > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes: > > > >> Craig Barnes <cjbarnes18@gmail.com> 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’s talking about (whereas > >> the installed Info pages of PDFs necessarily match the installed > >> version), and more importantly, it tends to be disorganized, > >> unmaintained, and often misleading. > In order to make sure that examples in the manual aren't broken, wouldn't > something equivalent to python doctests be necessary to ensure this? I think it > would be worse to have a broken example in the manual than somewhere > else. If the number of examples grow this could be equally unmaintainable. > > 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’s a bug. I’m willing to make it as simple 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’t quite fit in > >> the manual, like, say, instructions for a specific laptop model. > >> These could go in a wiki. > >> > >> Overall, I think it’s fine to have stuff at > >> <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Guix/> for instance, but the > >> manual should clearly remain the primary source of documentation, > >> without any ambiguity. > Thank you for your feedback on this, I agree with your points, and that in this > case the manual is the better place for this information. > > Going back to my original problem of finding information that isn't currently > in the manual, it would be great if there where an easier way to search / > browse the mailing list archives. This would make extracting great examples > to add to the manual easier. Any suggestions would be appreciated. > [Cook, Malcolm] The mailing list archives are searchable per http://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group=guix But, even better, they are also indexed at gmane, which I find to provide excellent sweet-spot for providing both search and browse - for example this discussion: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.guix.devel/11294/focus=11305 Plus, for any old-school usenet afficianados, gmane provides access via nntp. (anyone reading this in emacs gnus via nntp) This being a GNU oriented project I expect moving this to google groups is a non-starter. "Feh"s and "harrumph"s all around! > > Cheers > > Craig ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2015-09-10 15:35 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2015-09-07 22:08 Should we start a Guix users wiki? Craig Barnes 2015-09-08 8:01 ` Amirouche Boubekki 2015-09-08 9:54 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-08 12:40 ` Thompson, David 2015-09-08 14:37 ` Mark H Weaver 2015-09-10 10:47 ` Craig Barnes 2015-09-10 13:58 ` Ludovic Courtès 2015-09-10 15:35 ` Cook, Malcolm
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox; as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).