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Content-Language: en-US To: Maxim Cournoyer Cc: Ekaitz Zarraga , indieterminacy , Imran Iqbal , Giovanni Biscuolo , =?UTF-8?B?5a6L5paH5q2m?= , Katherine Cox-Buday , "(" , guix-devel@gnu.org References: <87msyhgccg.fsf@disroot.org> <547c097a-d805-9a55-11d9-b0434327f89d@gmail.com> <871qfpjhiz.fsf@gmail.com> <87a5udaq7q.fsf@envs.net> <87il8z9yw8.fsf@xelera.eu> <8c30655ca9905946fc718940700f2475@libre.brussels> <871qf2tg6u.fsf@fannys.me> <87cyymw046.fsf@gmail.com> From: MSavoritias In-Reply-To: <87cyymw046.fsf@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Last-TLS-Session-Version: TLSv1.3 Received-SPF: pass client-ip=81.95.52.48; envelope-from=email@msavoritias.me; helo=mail.webarch.email X-Spam_score_int: -31 X-Spam_score: -3.2 X-Spam_bar: --- X-Spam_report: (-3.2 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_INVALID=0.1, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, NICE_REPLY_A=-1.473, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: guix-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list 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+larch=yhetil.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+larch=yhetil.org@gnu.org X-Migadu-Flow: FLOW_IN X-Migadu-Country: US X-Migadu-Scanner: mx1.migadu.com X-Migadu-Spam-Score: 1.19 X-Spam-Score: 1.19 X-Migadu-Queue-Id: CE7BA45272 X-TUID: BAANz27bLqaD On 9/13/23 18:42, Maxim Cournoyer wrote: > Hi Fannys, > > Fannys writes: > >> Ekaitz Zarraga writes: >> >>>>> This is what I mean when I say many times emacs is kind of mandatory, >>>>> and >>>>> this thread is kind of a demonstration of what I meant because the main >>>>> discussion evolved to: you can use this or that in emacs to ease the >>>>> dev >>>>> experience. >>>> >>>> One of the benefits of my being able to attend Guix Days was seeing >>>> peoples' workflows and stacks in person. >>>> >>>> As such, one of my conclusions having (already) committed to Guix was >>>> that I needed to master Emacs prior to Guile >>>> (Im highly flow orientated). >>> But again, even if this is a great option for you, it might be a really bad >>> option for some other people. Everybody does not have the time to spend >>> learning emacs, or other specific tool. It's ok if the workflow suggests that >>> but it's not great if we have no other alternative. >>> >>> It's not accessible and imposes a barrier in some people. >> Yeah agreed. And we should be consious of that. >> Ironically by mandating Emacs and Email we force people to use specific >> tools while at the same time even though the same people will complain(!) against vendor lock-in >> like github. > There's no lock-in. You can use any tool you want. Most people hacking > on Guix do so with Emacs and Geiser because these are currently the best > tools (that I know of) to do the job; these are the tools many of us > know and can easily recommend. If Visual Code (or editor X) was > packaged in Guix and had great support for working with Guile, we could > also mention it in our manual or in the cookbook. > > Notice I use recommend rather than mandate; these are just > recommendations that try to be helpful. If it's not helpful to you, you > are free to select your own tool box and share how it works (via patches > to the contributing section or a blog post for example). > There are two problems here though. Let me elaborate: 1. The "recommendations": (This is just an example) I am a new person wanting to get involved or just tweak my config in guix/guile. I go to the manual to learn package management, https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/guix.html#Package-Management Apparently i have to either use the terminal or something called emacs. If I follow the guide located here: https://emacs-guix.gitlab.io/website/manual/latest/emacs-guix.html#Installation It says to install emacs-guix. Okay. So apparently it is an Emacs thing, whatever that means. And when you start Emacs after installing the package, you are going to end up with Emacs in its plain form. Unfamiliar keybindings, no autocomplete, etc. Well thats no to Emacs then. The other thing is the terminal apparently. Horrible, but at least it works. So what if I want to mess around with guile and the guix config directly? If we check here it says to use something called Emacs again. So Im guessing its the same Emacs that was also apparent in the previous step with the config. but not there are more tools. 2. The contribute yourself your tools. My point with all this is not to say its your fault or really anybody specific. Its more to say that: Recommendations in an abstract sense work fine. But not in the real world. You proposed: > If it's not helpful to you, you are free to select your own tool box and share how it works (via patches to the contributing section or a blog post for example). are free to select your own tool box and share how it works (via patches to the contributing section or a blog post for example). How many people actually have the time and energy and know-how to do this? In the original email it was about a mother who on her spare time contributes to guix. Or as another example it could be about a person that just starts programming. Or it could be about a person that works and has few spare time. Of course I saw in an email earlier in the thread that: "If you don't have time (as I do) then don't contribute." Which at the very least i find gross and not at all what guix is about. Guix is supposed to be about equity. We are not all privileged (not saying you are or anybody else in this thread is.) enough to have the time and knowledge to learn Emacs, git-mail, find an email client that works (still havent found one. previous email was with the wrong email and threads are a nightmare.), and set up geiser and such. The reason I have come to guix is because it strives to actually make it easier for people to change things. with guix shell and such. So making it easier for people to contribute is absolutely a part of it. Im not saying we should force every volunteer of course to do "work". What I am saying is: - Guix recommendations in the manual, in the cookbook and other places, carry weight. In the sense that if to use something else than Emacs i have to write my own scripts or go to some random tutorial in a search engine then we have effectively pushed Emacs as the main guix platform. For better or worse. And we have excluded a portion of contributors. Same with email, debbugs. What can solve this is effort to actually include people. Visual Code as you mentioned or any other editor, or mumi, these are all efforts to get contributors in the first place. The contributors will never come and create the infra and tooling they want by themselves. It takes some initial effort on our part to lower the barrier and "cognitive overhead" as in the title to actually encourage people to contribute. Same way that women or other minorities dont just "show up" to change the culture to make the welcome. they would rather go where they are already welcome. Not to make this too long i strongly disagree that "Create your own toolbox" is a barrier we should have for new users. And recommendations carry weight because its what people see the community putting effort into and using. Some proposals/good directions that we already have not to leave this with just complaining is: - Improve guile studio and add it as a recommendation. With an improve UI and keybindings for it. - Improve the docs of course. - add more editors maybe(?) by ourselves. This is for the starting to change guix/guile code that is. For people wanting to use code there is others. As there is for actually committing being discussed elsewhere for improvements. Yes I want to help on all of them at some point :) MSavoritias