Re: A Forum for Guix Users

[Felix Lechner via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." <guix-devel@gnu.org>]

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.

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

We have five broad issues, however:

1. Our community is small, and possibly shrinking.
2. Scheme is a niche language that is not being promoted enough.
3. Guix uses a complex file layout that's different from most other
distributions.
4. Our master branch often suffers from small defects that prevent
declared systems (and home configurations) from being updated in full.
5. Substitute availability is good, but download speeds can be poor
due to peering issues.

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.

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!

Kind regards
Felix