Re: Proposal for a blog contribution on reproducible computations

[Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen@fastmail.net>]

Hi Ludo, Simon, and GIovanni,

Thanks for your feedback !

> Minor comments:
>
>   • You write “Build systems are packages as well”.  This could be
>     slightly misleading: build systems are (1) a set of packages, and
>     (2) a build procedure.  Dunno if it makes sense to clarify that.

Maybe I got something wrong, but I think I described this as you say
(please check!). Quote:

  Build systems are pieces of Guile code that are part of Guix. But this
  Guile code is only a shallow layer orchestrating invocations of other
  software, such as =gcc= or =make=. And that software is defined by
  packages.

The build procedure is that "shallow layer orchestrating invocations".
Does this sound right?

>   • In the ‘guix pack’ example, you could perhaps omit all the -S flags
>     except for /bin, and mention ‘--save-provenance’.

I'll have to look up ‘--save-provenance’ first. I don't use "guix pack"
that much, though I should probably use it more, if only to expose more
people indirectly to Guix.

>   • Would it make sense to mention MPFR in the paragraph about IEEE 754?

I considered it, but left it out because it would probably create
confusion. And people who are aware of MPFR probably don't need my
explanation of floats.

>   • Regarding ‘--container’, you write that namespaces “may not be
>     present on your system, or may be disabled by default”, which is a
>     bit strong; “may be present on your system, but perhaps disabled by
>     default” would be more accurate.  :-)

Fixed. I don't know anything about the implementation techniques of
–container, so I'll blindly write what you say :-)

> The format we use is Markdown fed to Haunt:

OK, pandoc should get me there.

> You can post a patch against the guix-artwork.git repo here when you’re
> ready.

OK.

> If you want we can publish it next Tuesday or Thursday.  We could have
> it on both hpc.guix.info and guix.gnu.org, with one saying that it’s a
> re-post of the other.

Fine with me!


zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> That said, I also find interesting the command-line and hashes comparisons:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> /usr/bin/gcc pi.c -o pi-debian-gcc8
> docker run -v `pwd`:`pwd` -w `pwd` -ti gcc-toolchain gcc pi.c -o pi-docker
> guix environment --container --ad-hoc gcc-toolchain -- gcc pi.c -o pi-guix
>
> md5sum pi-*
>
> b268af34d62763a2a707944403bf7b0b  pi-debian-gcc8
> 1be3c1b5d1e065017e4c56f725b1a692  pi-docker
> 1be3c1b5d1e065017e4c56f725b1a692  pi-guix
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> Anyway! :-)

Nice! Not sure I want to go into that because it requires adding another
system (Debian), which I think is mainly a source of confusion.

>>   • Would it make sense to mention MPFR in the paragraph about IEEE 754?
>
> And MPFI? ;-)

OK, I see another blog post coming ;-) But there are people more
competent than myself for that.


Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu> writes:

>> (which is sad because your Org file with Babel sessions is much nicer…).
>> I think Pierre had something to convert Org to Markdown.
>
> you could try pandoc or emacs-ox-hugo, both in Guix
> I can help convert/adapt if needed

My plan for now is pandoc, but if that doesn't work as expected, I'll
come back to your offer for help!

Thanks everyone,
  Konrad.