From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?=) Subject: Re: [GSoC] Draft proposal for an Install Wizard for Guix Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:09:40 +0200 Message-ID: <871t6ph6nv.fsf@gnu.org> References: <56F1AEF0.60304@mtu.edu> <871t6ypuuk.fsf@gnu.org> <56F55DE4.4000505@mtu.edu> <87mvpl31uk.fsf@gnu.org> <56F78298.7060806@mtu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42570) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1alxtd-0005ll-GA for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Apr 2016 08:09:55 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1alxtY-00042F-8F for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Apr 2016 08:09:49 -0400 In-Reply-To: <56F78298.7060806@mtu.edu> (Thomas Ingram's message of "Sun, 27 Mar 2016 02:50:00 -0400") 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-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Thomas Ingram Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Thomas Ingram skribis: > On 03/26/2016 07:39 AM, Ludovic Court=C3=A8s wrote: >> Personally, I would like to view the =E2=80=9Cwizard=E2=80=9D as a helpe= r, and not as >> something that hides everything and turns people into =E2=80=9Cend users= .=E2=80=9D >> >> I don=E2=80=99t know how this could translate in the design of the tool. >> Perhaps showing the =E2=80=98operating-system=E2=80=99 declaration as yo= u suggest is one >> thing, and making it easy to view the section of the manual that >> corresponds to a particular item, or to jump to the code that defines a >> specific service (say), would be helpful too. > Yes as much as it is an installer it should also be an > introduction. Something that not only lets a user easily input their > options but also shows them how their settings will be put into > config.scm, I'm trying to come up with some clever ideas of how to do > this in a graceful way. Awesome. > Basically I was thinking of doing that with an ncurses UI that shows > the user their config.scm with some documentation and then walks users > through changing each option. But maybe an emacs installer makes more > sense as this is the type of interface emacs does very well. > > The reason I had avoided proposing an emacs installer previously is I > worry about confusion from users who are unfamiliar with emacs and how > to use it. Should we be concerned with that when so many of Guix's > great features that can be accessed through emacs. Perhaps there could > be a simple introduction to emacs in the installer as well? On the > other hand if a user has no experience with emacs throwing that at > them along with config.scm could be overwhelming. I understand your concern. I think that in this case, Emacs should be viewed as a UI toolkit: just like someone using an ncurses program doesn=E2=80=99t have to learn the ncu= rses API, someone using an Emacs-based UI doesn=E2=80=99t have to learn Emacs. It just happens that Emacs is a full-featured UI toolkit, especially when it comes to Guix things. For instance, it already has all we need to display and navigate source code (from an =E2=80=98operating-system=E2= =80=99 configuration, one can contextual documentation, jump to procedure/variable definitions, etc.), to navigate packages, and so on. Having said that, I think that if you=E2=80=99re more comfortable writing G= uile and ncurses code than Emacs code for this project, then that=E2=80=99s perf= ectly fine, of course. Thanks, Ludo=E2=80=99.