Re: The usability of Guix configurations

[myglc2 <myglc2@gmail.com>]

Sorry Leo, please disregard this miss-fire

On 11/06/2017 at 21:30 myglc2 writes:

> On 11/06/2017 at 17:16 Leo Famulari writes:
>
>> On Mon, Nov 06, 2017 at 03:12:11PM -0500, myglc2 wrote:
>>> My system recently broke when I did an upgrade. I reported what I
>>> thought was a bug (bug#29072) but it turned out that, because qemu
>>> package code had been moved, my system configuration had become broken
>>> ;-(
>>> 
>>> Confronted with my situation, helpful developers said "The package code
>>> was moved in commit xxx" (Leo) and "maybe you have a mistake in your
>>> config (Efraim)."
>>
>> I'm sorry that my comment was not enough on its own!
>>
>>> Once I understood what had happened I wondered, "Gee, I have been using
>>> guix for 18 months so why didn't I figure this out myself." ;-)
>>> 
>>> But a less committed user might say, "Wow, Guix breaks at random, error
>>> messages are hard to understand, and support is difficult."  :-(
>>
>> Good point.
>>
>>> ISTM this raises issues and questions about Guix configuration
>>> usability:
>>
>> Indeed.
>>
>>> Guix config errors are reported as raw scheme errors which are not
>>> user-friendly, except, perhaps, to guile users ;-) Could we improve this
>>> situation by adding config troubleshooting guidance to the doc?
>>
>> Yes, we do try to add helpful error messages, although obviously there
>> is a lot more work to be done.
> [...]
>>
>>> Guix config errors consume meaningful amounts of user and support
>>> effort. I say this because a) it took quite a few iterations to figure
>>> out what was wrong in my situation, and b) google search for '"no code
>>> for module" guix' finds 613 hits, which will no doubt grow linearly with
>>> number of Guix users unless something is done. So I wonder, could an
>>> error handler that translates into more user-friendly terms reduce user
>>> frustration, increase the rate of user self help, reduce support load,
>>> and effectively pay for itself?
>>
>> That would be awesome!
>>
>>> Are the current Guix config errors usable by the average GNU/Linux
>>> distribution user? If not, don't they need to be improved before we call
>>> it 1.0?
>>
>> Based on how much time it's possible to spend on IRC helping people, I'd
>> say there is lots of room for improvement in this area.
>>
>>> Does this mean that package code must not be moved after 1.0?
>>
>> A couple thoughts... it would be nice if the GuixSD configuration
>> example templates used a filename agnostic method of resolving module
>> imports. I'm not a strong enough Schemer to evaluate the situation or
>> suggest a solution, but I think that the filenames should not be
>> relevant at that level. Perhaps one could use
>> 'specification->package+output',
>> as demonstrated in the documentation of package manifests:
>>
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html
>>
> There is a parallel solution 
>>> Finally: Should I close bug#29072? ;-)
>>
>> The problem of the missing QEMU patch is resolved. The broader issue of
>> confusing error messages could be continued here, or elsewhere. It's up
>> to you :)