Re: How can we decrease the cognitive overhead for contributors?

[Katherine Cox-Buday <cox.katherine.e@gmail.com>]

On 8/23/23 9:33 PM, Ahmed Khanzada via Development of GNU Guix and the 
GNU System distribution. wrote:
> My wife and I are currently trying, so I hope to be a busy parent soon too!

Good luck to you!

> The debate comes down to: the people contributing the most code already
> have a very familiar workflow that they have automated (all probably within
> Emacs). Why should they change their contribution model for those who
> don't contribute much currently, and may never do so? (Not implying this
> is you! Just recounting the debate).

I know it's not your argument, but do you see the circular logic?

This type of "reasoning" is used to great effect in society to maintain 
an "in group" and an "out group". E.g. "There aren't a lot of paralyzed 
people at the top of these stairs, so why should we build a ramp if 
there's no one to use it?"

> But you're not asking that; you just want to lower the cognitive overhead.

Thank you for acknowledging my central point.

> I can't do much about the brutal learning curve of Emacs, Guix, and GNU,
> but I certainly can just package it so it's all ready to go with fancy
> scripts for the most common workflows.

I don't mind the learning. I actually think I know everything that 
should be done, it's just very cumbersome and error-prone to do 
everything, every time.

--
Katherine