Re: Announcing shepherd-run

[Runciter via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." <guix-devel@gnu.org>]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

Hello Ludo,

>   herd schedule timer at 07:00 -- mpg123 alarm.mp3

Sorry for hijacking the thread a little, and I haven't tried the
Shepherd release candidate yet.

Not that this is any of shepherd or herd's problem, but if you have
included or plan to include this example in documentation, you might want
to reconsider and include another simple meaningful example instead.

I possibly noticed this only because I use a minimal WM: mpg123 won't
start pulseaudio if pulseaudio is not already running. If there is a
workaround other than starting pulseaudio prior, I don't know it. In
case it doesn't ring, the evidence that herd did something at all will
be buried in the logs.

I actually think this is cool though, and the rest is mostly random
thoughts now that I think about this problem: a herd-based minimalist
alarm clock for production needs 2 features and must not include a third
feature:

* Repeat, but this is trivial to do with a script.

* A heuristic to output sound at all costs, while trying hard to output
  through speakers and not headphones. This is harder, maybe not
  absolutely required; I suppose phones get it right but I'm not
  even sure.

* A keystroke to stop the alarm from the X lock screen; surely the
  significant other will close their mind to the truth that this feature
  increases the attack surface and must not be included.