 | Nix Documentation | 418 Members |
| Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem | 84 Servers |
| Nix Documentation | 418 Members |
| Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem | 84 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Nov 2023 | ||
 Minijackson | sure! | 18:24:23 |
| Minijackson | done: https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/issues/817 | 18:32:24 |
 fricklerhandwerk | 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 |
| fricklerhandwerk | 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 | ||
 @zmitchell:matrix.org | 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 |
| Minijackson | 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 |
| fricklerhandwerk | 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 |
| fricklerhandwerk | 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 |
| @zmitchell:matrix.org | 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 |
| fricklerhandwerk | * 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 |
| fricklerhandwerk | * 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 | ||
 @ThorHop:matrix.org joined the room. | 00:57:34 | |
| @ThorHop:matrix.org | 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 |
| @ThorHop:matrix.org | Would it be wrong to fire off PR's directly, or should I do it in bulk every now and then? | 01:39:09 |
 tomberek | 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 |