| 13 Jul 2022 |
 j-k | I hope in the meeting later today we can note down a bunch of these ideas/suggestions without bike-shedding (...too much) on the call, set aside some time to test out and benchmark some of them, and ideally get a mostly prioritized list of what is most pressing or has big benefits etc.
It can also be good for a new team to get a couple smaller wins out of the way to get the ball rolling
although the first one might be more foundational groundwork for the team rather than collecting some of these ideas so it might have to be for a future meeting | 13:39:07 |
 infinisil | Yeah the agenda of the first meeting will be going over team organization and onboarding new members. If there's time we can also start going into more technical discussions already though | 13:42:03 |
 Sandro 🐧 | In reply to @kevincox:matrix.org
Also for overrides I think we can probably handle this basically the same we do today in all-packages.nix for now. We can think about changing those as a different project. For now it could look something like:
# foo.nix
{pkgs}: pkgs.callPackage foo/impl.nix { python = pkgs.python27 }
That isn't the prettiest but allows us to do overrides and maintains the current API. Then I think we can probably clean it up as a separate effort if we wanted too. Unless I am also missing a way that merging both projects returns a better result here. That is a really bad example because python 2 to 3 had many breaking changes in python itself and in many libraries. | 13:54:30 |
 kevincox | In reply to @sandro:supersandro.de
That is a really bad example because python 2 to 3 had many breaking changes in python itself and in many libraries. I don't follow how the breaking changes is bad in my example? You mean it would be better to be an example like libfoo = libfoo.override { withX = false} or something? | 13:56:34 |
| Sandro 🐧 | I would recommend something that would actually work out of the box right now, just with more code. Idk. Replace python 3.10 with 3.9 or only change a minor version or something like that | 13:58:26 |
| Sandro 🐧 | Or compile a go program with an older go version | 13:58:57 |
| Sandro 🐧 | Because that wouldn't require much extra work and leaves less room for side discussions. Bringing python 2 brings a lot of side discussions on the board and the python does not want to maintain an extra package set for python 2 which is only possible with old versions of most things. | 14:00:30 |
| infinisil | Sandro: I think that was only an example. More generically the question is "If all-packages.nix goes away, what to do with all these argument overrides in all-packages.nix" | 14:03:29 |
| Sandro 🐧 | Yeah I know, I would suggest to use uncontroversial examples without python 2.7 | 14:52:19 |
| infinisil | @room First meeting in 5 minutes at https://meet.jit.si/nixpkgs-architecture, anybody is free to join, meeting agenda and notes in https://pad.lassul.us/uIi7xeSJTW6LJUEHulZgVQ :) | 14:55:10 |
 mkaito | be there in 5, just brewing some coffee | 14:55:45 |
 Rick (Mindavi) | Might lurk for a bit :) | 14:59:28 |
 yorik.sar | infinisil: Good job driving this meeting! | 16:03:36 |
| infinisil | Thanks for joining everybody! I think this is starting out great, thanks for all the feedback :D | 16:03:40 |
 Alyssa Ross | yeah thanks infinisil :) | 16:04:00 |
| infinisil | Meeting notes uploaded here: https://github.com/nixpkgs-architecture/meetings/blob/master/2022-07-13.md, and the recording is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4sbfxcjzlnb85qc/nixpkgs-architecture%20on%202022-07-13%2016-02.mp4?dl=0 (for now, later to be uploaded to youtube) | 16:05:43 |
| yorik.sar | By the way, I think that threads in Matrix, even if the were not in beta, share pretty much all downsides of plain Matrix, adding very little benefit. They are still hard to follow (just like the channel itself), even if focused on one topic. | 16:06:46 |
| yorik.sar | I think that messengers that focus more on topics like Zulip or Twist (or Matrix from the future?) should be better at this. But for now we should probably use different tools. | 16:08:50 |
| Alyssa Ross | terrible idea: Discourse <-> Matrix threads bridge :P | 16:09:19 |
| yorik.sar | https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-chat-integration/66522 - it seems to support threaded replies for Slack... | 16:11:11 |
| mkaito | How about no 😛 | 16:39:19 |
| infinisil | I like the article ash (it/its) 🏳️⚧️ mentioned: http://new-compass.net/articles/against-consensus-dissensus . It's main thoughts are that basing decisions on strict consensus is problematic | 16:55:06 |
| infinisil | Instead the article suggests to try to first reach consensus, but if it can't be reached, do a vote (e.g. 2/3 majority) | 16:55:29 |
| infinisil | Here's a quote from the article:
-
A proposal is made, the group tries to reach consensus. Modifications may be made to the proposal. Consensus may be reached, or it may be decided that no consensus is necessary in this case – a few members of the group can implement the decision without bothering the others.
-
If, after reasonable attempts by all sides to accommodate each other have been made, no consensus is reached, a vote is taken using the agreed voting method. The facilitator will decide the right moment for the vote. The right moment can be the subject of debate, and people may raise objections, but if you have a facilitator who can be held accountable then they need to be trusted to make the final decision. Making a group decision on how to make a group decision when in the middle of a contentious meeting is not a viable option.
-
The group considers how those who lost the vote can be accommodated – this may have been dealt with already in the stage 1 discussions but it is often worth raising again after the vote.
-
The debate between differing views continues over the long term, and decisions can always be re-considered if appropriate.
| 16:56:01 |
| infinisil | This sounds very reasonable and I think it's a good idea to adapt the workings of this team to this strategy | 16:56:57 |
| Sandro 🐧 | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
Instead the article suggests to try to first reach consensus, but if it can't be reached, do a vote (e.g. 2/3 majority) Isn't that how it always works? | 17:07:51 |
| infinisil | Sandro: I think the difference is that in this case a vote is only used as a last-resort option when consensus fails, whereas usually a vote is used as the default mechanism | 17:09:36 |
| Rick (Mindavi) | Consensus should be the goal and voting is a type of making a compromise when you follow that | 17:11:08 |
| Sandro 🐧 | to much bureaucracy for me | 17:14:29 |
| infinisil | A necessary evil for such a team! | 17:17:14 |
