Re: GNU Guix Video Documentation

[Björn Höfling]

On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 06:13:52 +0200
Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> wrote:

> While screencasts can be useful, I don’t think they are the most
> useful tool to convey ideas.  Much of what’s special about Guix is
> not the command line user interface, but the underlying ideas.  These
> are better illustrated, I think, with the help of graphics as we have
> been doing for years when introducing Guix to new audiences.

I thought the videos are not for transporting general ideas, but to
show the daily usage of guix. And that is using the command line. By
showing common tasks the general idea gets transported (i.e. while
showing guix package -i, guix package --list-generations, guix package
--roll-back the idea of transactional package management is conveyed,
without much abstract words).

> One concern is also translations and future updates.  Recording a
> terminal session with screencasting software makes it impossible for
> us to easily translate the video.  When command line interactions are
> to be shown I’d prefer to have a way to reproduce / regenerate the
> output in a different locale automatically, i.e. using scripts.

When I thought about translations, I thought only about the speech and
subtitles. Of cause you are right, the command line should be localized
too!
 
> We can easily mix what amounts to a narrated slideshow with scripted
> command line sessions (cf asciicasts).  This can easily be automated,
> so that we can rebuild the video and update it with minimal effort to
> prevent it from getting stale.

When I said screencasts I first thought of handmade ones within well
prepared (and documented) environments and a script/stage
directions and script for automatic cutouts from the raw recordings.

Then I thought of this puppet we have for qemu-tests: Is it possible to
use it in order to controll the virtual machine, screencast it and get
back certain events like terminal keywords in order to start/stop/pause
the cast?

This is my first time I heard of asciicasts. You mean the program
asciinema and it's protocol asciicasts (https://asciinema.org/)? That
looks cool. Can it be used to produce rendered films too?

Automating the process as much as possible is a good idea. Can we get
that bitwise reproducible? :-)

[..]

> We can host the videos on http://audio-video.gnu.org/ and embed
them
> on the Guix website, but the sources should be added to the
> guix-artwork repository, I think.

Yes, that site looks good, I watched videos from it in the past.

> The videos could also be published on Mediagoblin instances, but I
> don’t know if there’s an instance for GNU packages.  GNU Guix does not
> currently have its own Mediagoblin instance.

We don't have a Mediagoblin package yet :-)

Björn

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