Nix Documentation | 420 Members | |
| Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem | 85 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Nov 2023 | ||
| Minijackson: Looks like an oversight! Could you open an issue for this? | 18:23:59 | |
| sure! | 18:24:23 | |
| done: https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/issues/817 | 18:32:24 | |
In reply to @infinisil:matrix.orgIt’s not an oversight. As mentioned at least twice in bold letters in the introduction, this is not supposed to be a complete overview but shall rather point out things that are both important and unusual about the language. Conditionals are neither, therefore they aren’t there. The article is very long already. | 19:27:33 | |
| What I could really need help with is cleaning up the language reference in the Nix manual. It’s still mostly a long meandering wall of text that needs to be a lot more concise, needs more focused examples, and most importantly syntax patterns for all the constructs. | 19:29:43 | |
| 29 Nov 2023 | ||
| You don’t think conditionals are an important part of the language? They’re one of the first things you learn in any language… | 16:50:43 | |
| I do think the tutorial needs to quite small to be digestible. Maybe the page needs to be split into a Tutorial + Reference? | 17:49:22 | |
In reply to @zmitchell:matrix.org Yes, conditionals are essential for programming. But they’re not special at all in the Nix language and - maybe important is not a good word, let’s say - particularly relevant for how it’s used in practice. As a beginner you will likely only see and work with purely declarative constructs. The introductory tutorial is absolutely not about computational reasoning, and definitely not about expressing anything in the language, but first and foremost about getting a first clue about what’s even going on. We have to optimize for brevity and relevance, and I deem conditionals to below the threshold for a first encounter. People are more likely to see | 17:55:55 | |
In reply to @zmitchell:matrix.org* Yes, conditionals are essential for programming. But they’re not special at all in the Nix language and - maybe important is not a good word, let’s say - particularly relevant for how it’s used in practice. As a beginner you will likely only see and work with purely declarative constructs. The introductory tutorial is absolutely not about computational reasoning, and definitely not about expressing anything in the language, but first and foremost about getting a first clue about what’s even going on. We have to optimize for brevity and relevance, and I deem conditionals to below the threshold for a first encounter. People are more likely to see map and filter than if … then … else in the wild. This is e.g. why builtins are mentioned, but not in any detail. | 17:56:27 | |
| Even if that’s the case, the fact that most people use imperative languages with if-statements is reason enough to at least call out that they do exist if you want them, but you probably want to do XYZ instead. | 20:09:16 | |
| * Yes, conditionals are essential for programming. But they’re not special at all in the Nix language and - maybe important is not a good word, let’s say - particularly relevant for how it’s used in practice. As a beginner you will likely only see and work with purely declarative constructs. The introductory tutorial is absolutely not about computational reasoning, and definitely not about expressing anything in the language, but first and foremost about getting a first clue about what’s even going on. We have to optimize for brevity and relevance, and I deem conditionals to below the threshold for a first encounter. People are more likely to see map and filter than if … then … else in the wild. This is e.g. why builtins are mentioned, but not in any detail. | 23:43:47 | |
| * Yes, conditionals are essential for programming. But they’re not special at all in the Nix language and - maybe important is not a good word, let’s say - particularly relevant for how it’s used in practice. As a beginner you will likely only see and work with purely declarative constructs. The introductory tutorial is absolutely not about computational reasoning, and definitely not about expressing anything in the language, but first and foremost about getting a first clue about what’s even going on. We have to optimize for brevity and relevance, and I deem conditionals to be below the threshold for a first encounter. People are more likely to see | 23:44:11 | |
| 30 Nov 2023 | ||
| 00:57:34 | ||
| Ey, folks. Need some language custodians. In regards to services.fail2ban.bantime-increment.maxtime, the description says this:
I was thinking of doing a PR with this:
At first I thought "defined in seconds" , but even according to the example posed time can be measured using units as well. | 01:38:56 | |
| Would it be wrong to fire off PR's directly, or should I do it in bulk every now and then? | 01:39:09 | |
| hopland (valorent vicky): often these settings descriptions are taken from upstream: https://github.com/fail2ban/fail2ban/blob/44fa2959e7c8ee010138250b3dafcfebc57dbce8/config/jail.conf#L55. I. Such a case, please consider improving upstream documentation so other benefit as well. | 03:57:28 | |
| Sorry, got some family commitment popping up and conflicting with today's meeting. See you again next time. | 14:33:21 | |
| Much better, however as a personal recommendation, I suggest using the list of times after each repeated failures. I found that attackers would repeat their attack after a while once they notice that they are banned, and alternate between corrupted hosts. | 14:56:49 | |
| * Much better, however as a personal recommendation, I suggest using the list of times after each repeated failures, using something like I found that attackers would repeat their attack after a while once they notice that they are banned, and alternate between corrupted hosts. Using multiplier following some exponential definitely help at getting rid of most repeated attempts. | 15:00:17 | |
| 1 Dec 2023 | ||
In reply to @fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgCould you clarify what you mean by "syntax patterns"? Also, just to confirm, you're referring to this? https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/language/ | 04:38:06 | |
| 04:49:04 | ||
In reply to @bzzm3r:matrix.org Things like at the top of this document: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/language/constructs/lookup-path I don't want to call them grammar because we're still far away from actually formalising any of that | 09:04:41 | |
| But grammar rules would be the technical term | 09:04:51 | |
In reply to @ThorHop:matrix.orgPlease do make PRs. Try to make small ones, they're easier to review and get merged quickly. | 09:05:36 | |
In reply to @ThorHop:matrix.org* Please do make PRs. Try to make small ones (both scope and diff), they're easier to review and get merged quickly. | 09:05:58 | |
| 11:08:07 | ||
| 2 Dec 2023 | ||
| 04:30:05 | ||
In reply to @fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgah cool, so a little BNF like thing | 04:33:51 | |
| this is kinda neat https://landscape.nixlang.wiki/ | 11:33:10 | |
ran nix-shell in nixpkgs/docs/ a while....still compiling 🤣 | 23:13:54 | |