| 23 Jul 2021 |
 matthewcroughan - nix.zone | computer aided design | 03:35:12 |
 davidak | to really be mainstream and beginner-friendly, we have to hide all technology and it has to work like Pop_OS!. look at the install, onboarding, updating experience | 03:35:50 |
 David Arnold | In reply to @davidak:matrix.org
that's what sysadmins do. most computer users are no sysadmins
like most car drivers don't build the car from scratch Yep, I agree! But maybe there is a persona that we can fish in the neighboring pond, not too far away from our origin waters? | 03:35:59 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Depends if we really want to pretend that this is what we are. | 03:36:16 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Nix is a programming language, it has to remain that way. | 03:36:30 |
| davidak | with nixos technology, it can be more robust and stable, but leave a lot of power for more advanced users | 03:36:35 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | And by being that, it is automatically off-limits to a lot of people. We can make interfaces, make it easier, make it so normal people never have to see it, but Nix is a programming language and that can't change. | 03:36:59 |
| David Arnold | I sense, the draw by number analogy has some innovation potential for us. | 03:37:04 |
| davidak | i think we don't need a nixos fork for that. it can fit into nixpkgs | 03:37:12 |
| David Arnold | What about a Typeform style experience to craft your configuration.nix? | 03:37:52 |
| David Arnold | (or divnix/devos 😎) | 03:38:12 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Nix lets you create anything you want on top. It's a language to build an OS> | 03:38:27 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | * Nix lets you create anything you want on top. It's a language to build an OS. | 03:38:28 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | NixOS is one such OS built with Nix. | 03:38:33 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | It's the reference distribution. | 03:38:39 |
| David Arnold | "Hey, what's your name?" ... | 03:38:58 |
| David Arnold | "I see you live in Amercias/Bogota, is that correct?" ... | 03:39:21 |
| David Arnold | "Do you want gnome, kde,...?" | 03:39:41 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | You could even make an Alexa skill that writes Nix files. "Hey Alexa, enable gnome3 and install tmate into my system environment". | 03:39:48 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | But people aren't going to switch away from the imperative way unless they value reproducibility, which not everyone does. | 03:40:15 |
| David Arnold | See, there is actually a lot of potential in the declarative model and leveraging nix> | 03:40:33 |
| David Arnold | * See, there is actually a lot of potential in the declarative model and leveraging `nix`. | 03:40:38 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | And by doing what Nix does, it absolutely does make a whole host of things more difficult by design. | 03:40:48 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Look at Discord. You cannot make a nix package for it. | 03:40:50 |
| davidak | the declarative style in git repo is great for sysadmins, developers and enthusiasts, but i think a casual computer user don't need it. when they only use one computer, they can just use a gui that changes configuration.nix | 03:41:44 |
| David Arnold | In reply to @davidak:matrix.org
the declarative style in git repo is great for sysadmins, developers and enthusiasts, but i think a casual computer user don't need it. when they only use one computer, they can just use a gui that changes configuration.nix Not a gui, though. A typeform-style experience. | 03:42:11 |
| davidak | and that can be the default on desktop iso | 03:42:16 |
| David Arnold | I think GUI is just a placeholder here for "onboarding experience". | 03:42:54 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Users have to care about the reproducibility aspect. Otherwise, it's lost on them. | 03:43:12 |
| matthewcroughan - nix.zone | Most people don't even care about privacy. | 03:43:19 |
