Sorry Leo, please disregard this miss-fire On 11/06/2017 at 21:30 myglc2 writes:
> On 11/06/2017 at 17:16 Leo Famulari writes: > >> On Mon, Nov 06, 2017 at 03:12:11PM -0500, myglc2 wrote: >>> My system recently broke when I did an upgrade. I reported what I >>> thought was a bug (bug#29072) but it turned out that, because qemu >>> package code had been moved, my system configuration had become broken >>> ;-( >>> >>> Confronted with my situation, helpful developers said "The package code >>> was moved in commit xxx" (Leo) and "maybe you have a mistake in your >>> config (Efraim)." >> >> I'm sorry that my comment was not enough on its own! >> >>> Once I understood what had happened I wondered, "Gee, I have been using >>> guix for 18 months so why didn't I figure this out myself." ;-) >>> >>> But a less committed user might say, "Wow, Guix breaks at random, error >>> messages are hard to understand, and support is difficult." :-( >> >> Good point. >> >>> ISTM this raises issues and questions about Guix configuration >>> usability: >> >> Indeed. >> >>> Guix config errors are reported as raw scheme errors which are not >>> user-friendly, except, perhaps, to guile users ;-) Could we improve this >>> situation by adding config troubleshooting guidance to the doc? >> >> Yes, we do try to add helpful error messages, although obviously there >> is a lot more work to be done. > [...] >> >>> Guix config errors consume meaningful amounts of user and support >>> effort. I say this because a) it took quite a few iterations to figure >>> out what was wrong in my situation, and b) google search for '"no code >>> for module" guix' finds 613 hits, which will no doubt grow linearly with >>> number of Guix users unless something is done. So I wonder, could an >>> error handler that translates into more user-friendly terms reduce user >>> frustration, increase the rate of user self help, reduce support load, >>> and effectively pay for itself? >> >> That would be awesome! >> >>> Are the current Guix config errors usable by the average GNU/Linux >>> distribution user? If not, don't they need to be improved before we call >>> it 1.0? >> >> Based on how much time it's possible to spend on IRC helping people, I'd >> say there is lots of room for improvement in this area. >> >>> Does this mean that package code must not be moved after 1.0? >> >> A couple thoughts... it would be nice if the GuixSD configuration >> example templates used a filename agnostic method of resolving module >> imports. I'm not a strong enough Schemer to evaluate the situation or >> suggest a solution, but I think that the filenames should not be >> relevant at that level. Perhaps one could use >> 'specification->package+output', >> as demonstrated in the documentation of package manifests: >> >> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html >> > There is a parallel solution >>> Finally: Should I close bug#29072? ;-) >> >> The problem of the missing QEMU patch is resolved. The broader issue of >> confusing error messages could be continued here, or elsewhere. It's up >> to you :)
