[GSoC] Newcomer

[GSoC] Newcomer

[Linus Heckemann]

Hi all,

I'm interested in participating in the Google Summer of Code,
particularly the guix-based build tool project. I've never worked with
Guix before, nor with any Lisp dialects, but I'm a big fan and full-time
user of NixOS and have contributed a number of patches to it.

Some of the folks on the IRC channel have already kindly pointed me to
some resources for learning Guile Scheme. Are there any resources in the
style of lethalman's "nix pills" describing guix, or some sort of "guix
for nix users" blog posts?

Additionally, I'd like to try getting my feet wet with Guix. Are there
any small issues that would be suitable for a complete beginner like me
to fix?

Best,

Linus

Re: [GSoC] Newcomer

[Chris Marusich]

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Hi!

Linus Heckemann <acc@sphalerite.org> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm interested in participating in the Google Summer of Code,
> particularly the guix-based build tool project. I've never worked with
> Guix before, nor with any Lisp dialects, but I'm a big fan and full-time
> user of NixOS and have contributed a number of patches to it.
>
> Some of the folks on the IRC channel have already kindly pointed me to
> some resources for learning Guile Scheme. Are there any resources in the
> style of lethalman's "nix pills" describing guix, or some sort of "guix
> for nix users" blog posts?
>
> Additionally, I'd like to try getting my feet wet with Guix. Are there
> any small issues that would be suitable for a complete beginner like me
> to fix?

Welcome!  Issues (large and small) are tracked using debbugs [1].  If
you're an emacs user, there is a convenient emacs interface [2] for
debbugs.  I suggest browsing there for small issues.

For learning Guix, I've found the manual [3] to be a very useful
starting point.  It does a great job of describing the Guix-specific
parts of project, but to fully understand what's going on, I think one
needs to also read about Nix.  Guix uses a slightly customized version
of the Nix daemon to actually perform the builds (i.e., to realize the
store derivations), keep track of references, perform garbage
collection, etc.  The main difference is that instead of using Nix
expressions to define and compose components, we use Guile scheme.  All
the tools for Guix are also written in Guile scheme.  Since you're
already familiar with Nix, you might find the Guix manual particularly
helpful in coming up to speed.

The following page also has a lot of introductory information about
Guix, but I don't think it's necessarily geared towards Nix users:

https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/help/

Hope that helps!

Footnotes: 
[1] https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=guix
[2] https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/debbugs.html
[3] https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/

-- 
Chris

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