From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ricardo Wurmus Subject: Re: my latest blog post Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2018 16:25:10 +0200 Message-ID: <87k1r91hkp.fsf@elephly.net> References: <877enaimsn.fsf@fastmail.com> <87po11j46q.fsf@dustycloud.org> 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]:49924) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRIKW-0003EK-Fj for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jun 2018 10:25:29 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRIKS-0000ia-76 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jun 2018 10:25:28 -0400 Received: from sender-of-o51.zoho.com ([135.84.80.216]:21112) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRIKR-0000fo-MW for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jun 2018 10:25:24 -0400 In-reply-to: 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: Catonano Cc: guix-devel , Joshua Branson Hi Catonano, > Andy Wingo has a post in which he lists tasks he'd lie to be implemented = on > Guile, many of them have to do with the file format of the compiled files. > > Some love should go to the quality of the experience too, not only to the > tech issues These are very closely linked. I mention this because it may not be obvious to people like myself who don=E2=80=99t work on compilers. FWIW, people *are* working on improving the experience of programming with Guile. Some do this by working on Geiser, others by writing libraries that are well-suited for exploratory programming with Geiser, etc. > Mark wrote to Fis in that thread on the Guile mailing list that in order = to > have better error messages, the compiler should be modified (and that wou= ld > be an awful lot of work) Exactly. Please note that the compiler is currently being modified, so it is not a good idea to start other big architectural changes right now. > I just think that the problem deserves to be mapped out so that people kn= ow > what they're getting into Certainly. We cannot demand of other people to do this work for us, though. If you follow guile-devel you will also see that some compiler changes have resulted in certain regressions, which are debugged, addressed, and ultimately fixed. Losing certain means of debugging things would also be considered a regression, and they can generally be handled in the same way. Andy=E2=80=99s time is still limited. What other people can do is discuss *specific* cases on guile-devel and work towards a solution. But please do not demand of others to explain everything in detail. (I=E2=80=99m dire= cting this at everyone who heeds my advice to go to guile-devel, not at any one person in particular.) In order to have a positive impact you also need to learn enough about the state of the art to ensure that the discussions can be productive. For compiler design I have a lot of things to read before being able to contribute meaningfully to a discussion; all I can do is record instances where Guile produces poor error messages and try to figure out what led to this outcome. Once I=E2=80=99ve done my work I can share this = with other developers and get their input. Some final remarks: I should say that I=E2=80=99m rather unhappy with your labelling of the Gui= le community as =E2=80=9Ctoxic=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Cfull of jerks=E2=80=9D. T= his has not been my experience at all, neither in my communications with the maintainers, nor in the response to my modest contributions. I will say that it is a rather quiet community, though. What you called =E2=80=9Cthe silent treatment=E2=80=9D is just silence, which is occasional= ly punctured by helpful comments. As a co-maintainer of Guix I would feel very uncomfortable if my replying to some (but not all) emails would be construed as an act of aggression, or really any kind of silent attempt at communicating something. In that case I=E2=80=99d much rather *not* res= pond to any emails. With regards to the shouting match on #guile that you linked in your blog post, I can only say that I would have likely stepped in had this happened when I was around. Textual communication certainly should not reach these levels of apparent aggression. -- Ricardo