Re: website: say what Guix is at the very top

[Chris Marusich]

address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Hello,
>
> Chris Marusich <address@hidden> skribis:
>
>> Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Hi Guix,
>>>
>>> on the website it starts right away with a list of features:
>>> “Liberating”, “Dependable”, and “Hackable”.  But what is this thing
>>> called Guix?
>>>
>>> We should add a very short paragraph above that list to say what Guix
>>> and GuixSD are.
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>
>> How is Guix different from other package managers?  Why is it better?
>
> That’s what Liberating (free software), Dependable (transactional,
> etc.), Hackable (it’s a Scheme API) tries to convey.
>
> The hope was that by reading these 3 items people could tell how it
> differs from APT/dpkg, Conda, or Nix.

To be honest, I really like the current list of 3 items.  I think it's a
good "marketing" front page, even if perhaps it doesn't provide a
complete answer of what Guix is.  What do you think about making these
minor changes to the website (see attached).

>> Perhaps the best way to do that would be to write a problem statement.
>> Instead of explaining what Guix is, explain what problems Guix solves.
>> The first chapter of Eelco Dolstra's Ph. D. thesis [1] did a fantastic
>> job of explaining what problems Nix solves, and by the end of that
>> chapter, I was really excited to learn more about Nix (and Guix) and try
>> it out.  In particular, the list of problems with the state of the art
>> in section 1.3 "Motivation" and the list of solutions that Nix offers in
>> section 1.5 "Contributions" were particularly concise and convincing.
>> Maybe we can aim for something similar on our Guix website?
>
> The “Introduction” and “Features” sections of the manual aim to achieve
> that goal, but in a “constructive” way (stating what properties it has,
> rather than what properties other solutions lack.)  However, I think
> it’s not that concise and it’s quite technical, so I’d keep that in the
> manual rather than on the front page.
>
> Thoughts?

I agree.  Our manual is great overall.  If I can think of ways to
improve it even more, I'll submit more patches for review.

-- 
Chris

0001-website-Clarify-the-descriptions-of-Guix-and-GuixSD.patch
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