| 4 Feb 2024 |
|  Bryan Honof changed their profile picture. | 11:31:25 |
|  raboof changed their display name from raboof @FOSDEM to raboof. | 17:41:37 |
 SYMYƧ | I would like to help with documentation. I have put some time into learning Nix and NixOS but would still consider myself a beginner-level learner. Helping with documentation is a recommended starting contribution, and also seems like an efficient way to take excellent notes as I go that can also benefit others.
But also, I really like diagramming things, and I've noticed there is a shortage of visual documentation components. I am looking for some guidance on what might be some good things to diagram that people have noticed or thought of. I'm thinking:
- Organizational graphs (maybe something about store layout)
- Mnemonic devices ( Venn-diagrams pertaining to use-cases of flakes vs modules, or something like that )
- Really, my goal is abundant and diverse visual learning aids. Doesn't have to stop at visual media even.
| 18:01:41 |
| SYMYƧ | I was thinking about starting with some of the diagrams in https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf , like taking them as a starting point, determining if anything has changed since the thesis was released, then building diagrams (as code, preferably) with a little more color or whatever. Then going from there. | 18:04:01 |
| SYMYƧ | Has anybody ever looked at a doc and said "I wish there were less diagrams"? 🤔 | 18:04:42 |
 @qyriad:matrix.org | Yes, but only when they were bad =P Go for it, the docs could definitely use some visual aids | 18:05:37 |
 danielsidhion | Diagrams are welcome! Feel free to ask if you need help reviewing them or with anything else | 18:23:05 |
| SYMYƧ | One thing I'm wondering - if I want to do diagrams as code, are the docs opinionated as to what language I'd do that in? I've used that python diagrams as code library a lot. But also webGL... Could do Go or something..... | 20:15:07 |
| SYMYƧ | WebGL is awful heavy, idk if rendering to html canvases would be good at all... Python diagrams would actually make maintaining the diagrams pretty easy but I don't know how well it would integrate with the docs. | 20:17:52 |
| SYMYƧ | nix.dev seems to have a lot of python stuff, so the https://diagrams.mingrammer.com/ thing should actually be kinda perfect right? | 20:45:54 |
| SYMYƧ | Oh I got an idea for my first diagram here: "Map of the Nix Documentation Multiverse" | 21:01:55 |
 infinisil | symys: That sounds great! I'd be in favor of Mermaid diagrams, because GitHub supports them natively now | 22:36:16 |
| infinisil | And I'd expect sphinx (which is used for nix.dev) to have a plugin for that too | 22:36:43 |
| 5 Feb 2024 |
 Austin Horstman | Been using mermaid diagrams at a client and have really liked ‘em so far. | 00:31:34 |
| infinisil | I also added one to the contributor docs :D https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/86a5d2482eecde9579c2f073e04a14e170ef5e31/CONTRIBUTING.md#staging | 00:43:23 |
| SYMYƧ | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
I also added one to the contributor docs :D https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/86a5d2482eecde9579c2f073e04a14e170ef5e31/CONTRIBUTING.md#staging Nice, now I can look at how you did that 😄 I was thinking those commit graphs looked like something that might come in handy! And it just adds some color into the doc right away which is nice! | 12:08:52 |
 Sandro 🐧 | Someone can have a loom at https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/252091 ? | 18:11:31 |
|  @ThorHop:matrix.org removed their profile picture. | 22:45:09 |
| @ThorHop:matrix.org removed their display name IdeallyYes. | 22:46:17 |
