From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: zimoun Subject: Re: bug#38529: Make --ad-hoc the default for guix environment proposed deprecation mechanism Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2019 01:04:08 +0100 Message-ID: References: <87eexeu8mo.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> <87k16vdise.fsf@gnu.org> <87zhfp2w11.fsf@web.de> <871rt03shq.fsf@web.de> <87zhfn3hgj.fsf@web.de> <87o8w2iorn.fsf@web.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45102) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1iiSFt-00082p-PC for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 20 Dec 2019 19:04:27 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1iiSFr-0006lw-Tq for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 20 Dec 2019 19:04:25 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87o8w2iorn.fsf@web.de> 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" To: Arne Babenhauserheide Cc: Guix Devel , bug-guix@gnu.org, 38529@debbugs.gnu.org Hi Arne, First, do not take me wrong, I am not "fighting" or not going to an "heated debate". I am fine and I hope you are also fine. As I said my opinion in other emails, I am not repeating here. Well, I am not convinced it is the good one, but as I trust collective power, I am sure Guix will find the best consensus. I am even calling since the very beginning of this discussion to collect opinions from the other fellow hackers. Expressing the feelings is better than bitterness. Therefore I express mines. :-) I could send that privately because I am not sure it deserves to be public. But let wash the laundry in family (translation from French expression ;-)) On Sat, 21 Dec 2019 at 00:02, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote= : > > Konrad's example. So, nothing new on the table; except you are > > starting to throw "feelings" with the "traumatic change" words. > > I do not see this as feelings, but as strategy. That=E2=80=99s what the a= rticle > is about: Many small breakages add up, and repeated changes to > best-practices also add up. Just to be on the same wavelength, traumatic means in the Collins Dictionnary: "A 'traumatic' experience is very shocking and upsetting, and may cause psychological damage." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/traumatic Well, to me it could make sense in the context of the mentioned blog. Even if I feel this very opinionated. Not to say it could hurt me; bah I am a big boy, that's ok. Again, to be on the same wavelength, the blog says: "The result has been hugely divisive and intimately familiar to anyone who works with Python, creating massive rifts in the community and wasting millions of hours of engineer time addressing. This kind of =E2=80=9Cstrong=E2=80=9D= trauma is fairly easy to spot in advance." Well, I understand when speaking about Python. Are we comparing the number of Guix users with the number of Python users? Are we comparing the number of changes between Python 2 and 3 with the change of the default "guix environment foo"? And not all the "guix environment" behaviour, only a specific case. Ok, maybe we are talking about the other trauma. The blog explains: "Since nothing has actually broken with this change, the effects are more subtle than with strong traumatic changes." and then "The opportunity to solve this problem by rewriting with asyncio in mind, however, also presents me a chance to rewrite in anything else, and reevaluate my choice of Python for the project entirely." I am sorry, I do not understand. I am probably too dumb. On one hand, the issue of "guix environment" is the very backward compatibility so are we really talking about this second "trauma"? On the other hand, because "guix environment" will be better and users probably need to rethink how they use Guix, then they will fully drop Guix. Maybe "feelings" (quoting, in citation quoted too) is not the right word. My point is all is vague. Example: I have the feeling that my students(*) do not like Scheme; do I need to switch next year to another language? Then do I make my decision based on my feelings? based on the feelings of the students who are retaking the year (could be shocked)? Me, I will make my decision based on: how many students failed? what do they understand? what could be better for all the students? what could be a better language? what is the ratio between the new student vs the retaking ones? how many length the Scheme textbook is? etc. Well, analogy is just analogy. Well, that's it. I expressed what it appears to me a trail going nowhere. Let move forward and put energy in "backward compatibility" discussion: does Guix want? what does it imply? which level? etc. for example, your interesting input "GUIX_ENVIRONMENT_STABLE=3D1". All the best, simon (*) hypothetical, I do not have real students, even if I teach a bit. And we use Python as introduction to implemented algorithms after 1 year fighting to switch from C. Whatever! :-)