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Nix Documentation

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Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem81 Servers

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16 Mar 2024
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostIt would still be nice for longer documents like those for stdenv & mkDerivation.17:20:40
@danielsidhion:nixos.devdanielsidhion
In reply to @fricklerhandwerk:matrix.org
With nixdoc taking shape, does anything speak against systematically moving that text into the code?
There are a few tricky cases that we'll need to handle that requires more thought before doing it right away (one that we already encountered is function with doc-comment that documents inputs, but then more doc-comments on each function argument)
17:21:19
@danielsidhion:nixos.devdanielsidhionThose cases (and what we're doing with them) aren't documented right now, and the way we handle these will likely change in the future, which is why we're being a bit conservative with the move17:23:02
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.space oh wow we only now get to see the backlog. someone asked about multipage rendering in nrd it seems? html:into-file makes that happen, the manual already uses that to render the option docs and appendix. isn't automated per chapter/part, but could be added easily (the infra to do this is there already) 18:13:51
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.space getting the official manual to render multipage is literally just sprinkling html:into-file directives on the includes and letting it build 18:14:46
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.space(which, we do want to stress at the risk of offending someone, we have said at least five different times, including in meetings of the docs team)18:15:58
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host(Without also offending) Was it a lack of contributions? or why don't we have a multi-page outut if it's trivial and has been said so many times? It would be interesting to know whats the root cause then.18:56:19
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spacelack of contributions probably. the topic has come up often enough and we replied how often enough but were burned out enough to not do the splitting work18:57:00
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spacemight've also just been forgetten time and time again.18:57:52
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostI'll definitely look into it. 18:58:52
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spacein any case it would be easy to split the manual as is, and with just a little work the split could be done programmatically based on toc structure too. that's part of why the toc data structures are the way they are18:59:12
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.space(we haven't read much of the backlog past seeing that the question must've existed because that part was full of build logs, and the backlog didn't go much further anyway. gotta love matrix)19:00:38
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostDo you have the issue number? can't find it on the project board.19:02:29
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spaceissue number for what?19:02:54
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostI assumed we had an issue for page splitting. Might not be true then?20:52:54
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spaceah. can't remember one immediately at least20:53:50
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spaceyeah, there isn't one we could find either20:57:09
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk

There's some top-level attribute rev being passed through to the manual rendering machinery, which is used to create the source links. It comes from flake.nix, but I just can't find where and how it's set.

Ideas?

21:53:40
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk *

There's some top-level attribute rev being passed through to the Nixpkgs manual rendering machinery, which is used to create the source links. It comes from flake.nix, but I just can't find where and how it's set.

Ideas?

21:53:58
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spaceset by the flake machinery because it's a git repo, probably21:54:42
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk
In reply to @pennae:matrix.eno.space
set by the flake machinery because it's a git repo, probably

Hm no, at least I don't see how a flake would do that. An empty flake like this:

{
  outputs = { self, ... }: {
    foo = self;
  };
}

called with nix eval .#foo doesn't show a rev attribute.

21:59:30
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk
In reply to @pennae:matrix.eno.space
set by the flake machinery because it's a git repo, probably
*

Hm no, at least I don't see how a flake would do that. An empty flake in a Git repo, like this:

{
  outputs = { self, ... }: {
    foo = self;
  };
}

called with nix eval .#foo doesn't show a rev attribute.

21:59:58
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spacecommit it22:03:24
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerkI did22:03:31
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spaceshows up having a rev for us22:03:47
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerkAh okay, apparently something was weird when using an existing repo. It worked in a clean one.22:04:23
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerkThanks. Cursed stuff.22:06:21
@pennae:matrix.eno.space@pennae:matrix.eno.spacethat's flakes for you22:06:28
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk

There is more Nix nature in one line of Nix language than in ten thousand lines of C++

https://www.catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/ten-thousand.html

22:08:32
17 Mar 2024
@rina/:matrix.orgkait
In reply to @fricklerhandwerk:matrix.org

There is a wealth of information here: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/C

Mostly written by @Mic92 in past years AFAIK. Would be great to have that closer to the code, because all of that is Nixpkgs material.

We still haven't really figured out how to organise troubleshooting tips and other guide-like material across the ecosystem though. The last state of affairs was that we converged on the idea that it should be a bit like what Johannes Kirschbauer @hsjobeki proposes for function documentation, but for guides: have a uniform format used across Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS, and present that in one place, annotated with tags and searchable. But that is a lot of "should", and will require thinking about the structure of the manuals, and moving around lots of text.

indeed, the wiki is useful but I also find it goes into too much detail with flag setting. most of the time, if you set up things correctly, it should "just work". maybe I can add a section here in the meantime
01:00:37

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