Re: Guix Documentation Meetup

[André A . Gomes]

Matt <matt@excalamus.com> writes:

>  > I'm not connected with Guix with any way - a mere enthusiast and
>  > observer.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.  Being excited about something and taking
> the time to observe it, like listening to music, is a connection,
> right?

I mentioned because ultimately the final word isn't mine :)

> I'm curious, what makes you feel not connected with Guix?

I feel connected "philosophically" as a (basic) user, but not as a
contributor.  Guix, by itself, is a complex system.  Honestly, I suck at
using Guile in a project of this scale (no, I don't think the
documentation is poor).  I have some understanding in Emacs and
slime/common lisp systems, but I still need to dive into geiser.  There
are difficulties of other sorts as well.  This is a Unix system and that
fact alone requires knowledge and experience.  I assume that most core
contributors are/were involved in other efforts such as Debian, Arch,
Gentoo, etc.  Besides experience in "system administration" and HPC.

I don't know how many people in the community have
non-CS/Unix/programming backgrounds so I share some personal thoughts
below.  It's not that I want to share my life, but it might resonate
with the experiences of others.

My background is in theoretical physics and pure maths.  I never cared
about computers or computation, until I had to find a job circa 2018.  I
landed on a wind energy company which owns a supercomputer (running
GNU/Linux of course), and without me realising, I was being "forced" to
be a software developer.  I had to learn a lot and fast.  Soon, I
understood that the bottleneck on the success of a given project isn't
in the lack of domain-specific/scientific knowledge, but in the lack of
robust (software) tools and "software knowledge" in general.  Most
"scientists" think: "these IT/programmers can't do their work properly".
This division ("scientists" and "programmers") is toxic.  Yes, it's VERY
hard to find people who do both well.  Guix a step towards tearing this
wall apart for good.  It's not by chance that Guix has a strong presence
on HPC.  (Yes, it's hell to depend on an admin to install stuff).  It's
interesting to note that the effort comes from the "programmers" side.
I think the bottleneck on Guix's world domination is precisely because
"scientists" generally make little effort in that regard.  It's hard to
make "non-sexy" things look sexy.  Go and tell a "data-scientist" about
reproducible builds.  Good luck.

It's ok if things are overwhelming and hard.  Things eventually click
and start to make sense.  


--
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"