Re: [Nix-dev] assembly on 33C3

[Karsten Gebbert]

Nice one! See you there!

Joachim Schiele <j...@lastlog.de> writes:

> On 31.10.2016 11:08, Joachim Schiele wrote:
>> anyone else interested to have a dedicated NixOS/Nix assembly at the 33C3?
>> 
>> when there is interest, let me know:
>> j...@lastlog.de
>
> https://events.ccc.de/congress/2016/wiki/Assembly:NixOS
>
>
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-- 
Karsten Gebbert.
http://ioctl.it


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Re: [Nix-dev] [ANN] Paket2Nix

[Karsten Gebbert]

Luca Bruno  writes:

> Hi thanks for your contribution. Any reason why you didn't use the existing
> dotnetPackages infrastructure?

Yes :)

1) When I started, I did not have a good-enough insight into what there is
already, though that has somewhat changed now. I have an open issue to integrate
parts of the existing code into Paket2Nix.

2) I chose a different strategy for making sure the project finds its
dependencies, namely by linking them into the places referenced in the project
XMLs. The current approach involves creating pkg-config files for each library,
and extensively patching the project files (which, incidentally, I still had to
do as well to turn off Paket itself).

3) I'm currently bouncing ideas back and forth in my mind how to create a
workflow that will simplify all of this. An approach I find appealing could be
to create composed environments where mono is packaged with all specified
libraries via a composed Global Assembly Cache. Then the workflow could become
similar to that of Haskell's, where we'd compose mono (or the coreclr) with the
packages we need. This requires an automated approach to bringing in NuGet deps,
which is definitely possible.


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Re: [Nix-dev] Real documentation, aka "Let's kill the wiki"

[Karsten Gebbert]

Hajo Möller  writes:

> As mentioned in another thread, Rok Garbas proposed to remove the wiki
> and replace it with "real documentation". I fully support this.
>
> To follow up on this proposal I suggest we decide what real
> documentation should look like, so let us reiterate his main points:
>
> "Why do we write documentation?"
> Is it just to remind ourselves about details, or also for helping the
> readers reach an advanced level of understanding? It should be the both.
>
> "There needs to be a clear definition of how documentation is written."
> We already have coding conventions, but there is no clear how-to for
> writing good documentation. Maybe (professional) technical writers can
> chime in here?
>
> "Documentation should teach, not tell."
> As Rok said, handing somebody who is learning a new language a
> dictionary would not help them learn.
> It is not possible for us to get an immediate reaction to pinpoint the
> exact moment our documentation becomes incomprehensible, having our
> documentation follow a well-defined pattern should help here.
> This also means we need to hold our users' hands, leading them
> step-by-step through complex procedures instead of directly presenting
> results.
>
> "You should never tell somebody to read the source."
> Even though the source code should be self-explanatory (and often is,
> see the files in nixpkgs/lib for well-commented examples), having real
> documentation in the form of a manual helps keep everything in the same
> place. This way there can be a single location where users come to when
> they are lost.
>
> "The manual is good, but not made for beginners."
> Rok suggests to have tutorials teaching the basics of Nix and NixOS.
> Although I generally agree, I am not sure where to place those tutorials
> and what they should cover. Should they be on people's blogs, aggregated
> in the planet.nixos.org?
>
> "Let's kill the wiki, it's not documentation but an abomination."
> Unmoderated wikis tend to contain outdated or just plain wrong
> information, it is then arguably better to have no documentation at all
> than a wiki teaching the wrong things. Also, developers asking (possibly
> misunderstanding) users to fix the wiki could lead to a scenario where
> the blind lead the blind.

I think that it would be good to loosely decide on the sections a good
manual/documentation should consist of. This might help structuring the effort
and break up tasks in meaningful chunks.

I guess the gold standard in FLOSS OS documentation is the Arch Wiki (kind of),
and it would be good to approach the task with its quality and comprehensiveness
as the long-term goal.

From the top of my head, there are multiple aspects to it:

* Cookbook (how do I do XYZ?) e.g.
  - setting up a Desktop environment
  - setting up ...
  - setting up a development environment
  - detailed guides on developing with in language XYZ
  - overriding/customizing packages
  - 
* nix-* command reference (man pages would probably already suffice)
* nixpkgs & library (w/ inline docs)
  - modules
  - contributors guide
  - function reference? 
* nix, the language
  - reference manual
  - useful snippets?

So, if there is an effort to aggregate information in one place, we could split
up the task according to such a list of sections and work more or less
independently in branches.

Best,

karsten
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Re: [Nix-dev] TexLive wiki page

[Karsten Gebbert]

Matthias Beyer  writes:

> On 17-11-2015 20:53:24, Pascal Wittmann wrote:
>> On 11/17/2015 08:03 PM, Hajo Möller wrote:
>> > Didn't we decide to kill (all of) the wiki and replace it with real
>> > documentation? :-)
>> > 
>> > See Rok's nicely inspiring NixCon talk "Make Nix friendlier for Beginners",
>> > https://media.ccc.de/v/nixcon2015-3-MakeNixfriendlierforBeginners
>> 
>> As far as I know no decision was made. Rok only made the proposal in his
>> talk. But +1 from me for killing the wiki and migrate it into "real"
>> documentation.
>
> I wonder what a "real" documentation looks like!

Of course that is debatable :) - I think the discussion ought to be about how to
lower the bar to contribute documentation by making it more accessible/hackable
and preferably concentrating in one place.

IMHO, the Github wiki should probably be that place, and the workflow
markdown/rst/org -> pandoc -> pdf/html (& possibly gh-pages). It makes it easy
to contribute via $EDITOR + git or a convenient web interface.

My $0.02 :)

-- Karsten
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Re: [Nix-dev] NixCon thanks

[Karsten Gebbert]

Arseniy Seroka  writes:

> Thank you all for NixCon 2015! That was super amazing and super awesome.
>
> -- 
> Sincerely,
> Arseniy Seroka

I agree completely! For me it was also really amazing. I learned *a lot* and am
looking forward to get deeper into everything. :)

Have a good sprint!

Karsten
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