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From: "André A. Gomes" <andremegafone@gmail.com>
To: Matt <matt@excalamus.com>
Cc: guix-devel <guix-devel@gnu.org>, calcium <calcium@disroot.org>
Subject: Re: Guix Documentation Meetup
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 19:05:30 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87czkzo9th.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <17e4437d4b3.ed52eea353456.7978305425404430081@excalamus.com> (matt@excalamus.com's message of "Mon, 10 Jan 2022 08:40:16 -0500")

Matt <matt@excalamus.com> writes:

>  > I'm not connected with Guix with any way - a mere enthusiast and
>  > observer.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.  Being excited about something and taking
> the time to observe it, like listening to music, is a connection,
> right?

I mentioned because ultimately the final word isn't mine :)

> I'm curious, what makes you feel not connected with Guix?

I feel connected "philosophically" as a (basic) user, but not as a
contributor.  Guix, by itself, is a complex system.  Honestly, I suck at
using Guile in a project of this scale (no, I don't think the
documentation is poor).  I have some understanding in Emacs and
slime/common lisp systems, but I still need to dive into geiser.  There
are difficulties of other sorts as well.  This is a Unix system and that
fact alone requires knowledge and experience.  I assume that most core
contributors are/were involved in other efforts such as Debian, Arch,
Gentoo, etc.  Besides experience in "system administration" and HPC.

I don't know how many people in the community have
non-CS/Unix/programming backgrounds so I share some personal thoughts
below.  It's not that I want to share my life, but it might resonate
with the experiences of others.

My background is in theoretical physics and pure maths.  I never cared
about computers or computation, until I had to find a job circa 2018.  I
landed on a wind energy company which owns a supercomputer (running
GNU/Linux of course), and without me realising, I was being "forced" to
be a software developer.  I had to learn a lot and fast.  Soon, I
understood that the bottleneck on the success of a given project isn't
in the lack of domain-specific/scientific knowledge, but in the lack of
robust (software) tools and "software knowledge" in general.  Most
"scientists" think: "these IT/programmers can't do their work properly".
This division ("scientists" and "programmers") is toxic.  Yes, it's VERY
hard to find people who do both well.  Guix a step towards tearing this
wall apart for good.  It's not by chance that Guix has a strong presence
on HPC.  (Yes, it's hell to depend on an admin to install stuff).  It's
interesting to note that the effort comes from the "programmers" side.
I think the bottleneck on Guix's world domination is precisely because
"scientists" generally make little effort in that regard.  It's hard to
make "non-sexy" things look sexy.  Go and tell a "data-scientist" about
reproducible builds.  Good luck.

It's ok if things are overwhelming and hard.  Things eventually click
and start to make sense.  


--
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"


  reply	other threads:[~2022-01-10 16:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <mailman.34870.1641617883.18145.guix-devel@gnu.org>
2022-01-08  8:42 ` Guix Documentation Meetup calcium
2022-01-08 11:35   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2022-01-08 11:49     ` calcium
2022-01-08 16:24     ` Matt
2022-01-08 18:58       ` Ricardo Wurmus
2022-01-08 19:06       ` Leo Famulari
2022-01-09 21:12         ` Matt
2022-01-10  9:05           ` André A. Gomes
2022-01-10 13:40             ` Matt
2022-01-10 16:05               ` André A. Gomes [this message]
2022-01-11 18:45                 ` Matt
2022-01-12 18:41           ` Leo Famulari
2022-01-13  0:04             ` Matt
2022-01-10 15:21       ` Planet of Guix-related posts? zimoun
2022-01-11 13:38         ` Matt
2022-01-12  1:40         ` Matt
2022-01-12  5:17           ` André A. Gomes
2022-01-12  8:30           ` Ricardo Wurmus
2022-01-12  9:23             ` Oliver Propst
2022-01-12  8:36           ` Ricardo Wurmus
2022-01-13  0:22       ` Guix Documentation Meetup Leo Famulari
2022-01-13 13:15         ` ilmu
2022-01-08 13:41   ` Matt
2022-01-08 14:09     ` Julien Lepiller
2022-01-08 14:54       ` Matt
2022-01-08 14:39     ` Josselin Poiret
2022-03-10 17:02 Raghav Gururajan
2022-03-10 17:11 ` Raghav Gururajan
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2022-01-08  4:52 Matt
2022-01-10  9:47 ` Oliver Propst
2022-01-10 13:15   ` Matt
2022-01-11 16:24     ` jgart
2022-01-12  0:59       ` Matt
2022-01-12  1:20         ` jgart
2022-01-12  2:57           ` Matt
2022-01-12  3:10             ` Matt
2021-12-13 13:45 Blake Shaw
2021-12-13 15:55 ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2021-12-13 12:41 Blake Shaw
2021-12-13 12:33 Blake Shaw
2021-12-15 17:37 ` Blake Shaw
2021-12-15 19:12   ` zimoun
2021-12-15 22:37     ` jgart
2021-12-11  1:42 Blake Shaw
2021-12-10 22:40 Blake Shaw
2021-12-10 23:18 ` Ryan Prior
2021-12-11 18:55   ` Katherine Cox-Buday
     [not found]     ` <87lf0q2m7n.fsf@nonconstructivism.com>
2021-12-13  3:50       ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2021-12-30 21:52         ` adriano
2022-01-06 15:58           ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2021-12-13  8:29 ` zimoun
2021-12-14 16:01   ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2021-12-14 17:38     ` Luis Felipe
2021-12-14 17:52       ` Katherine Cox-Buday
2021-12-21  6:41 ` adriano
2021-12-09  9:28 jgart

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