Nix Documentation | 420 Members | |
| Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem | 87 Servers |
| Sender | Message | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Jan 2024 | ||
| also, if we are closing the ryantm pr (why??), we should commit to that? | 20:59:43 | |
| * also, if we are closing the ryantm pr (why?), we should commit to that? | 21:00:16 | |
In reply to @jade_:matrix.orgcommit to what? | 21:01:33 | |
In reply to @jade_:matrix.orgyes, as is often the case, tribal knowledge is everywhere in the ecosystem. but i think in this case, what is used in nixpkgs is more or less what constitutes consensus, and at the moment, that's nrd (which was merged not even that long ago) | 21:05:07 | |
In reply to @asymmetric:matrix.dapp.org.ukclosing it. if it is not something we are doing | 21:09:09 | |
In reply to @jade_:matrix.orgi totally agree on a need to explain the tooling that produces the documentation for nix, nixpkgs and nixos, and to figure out how that tooling can deliver split nixpkgs manual, and ideally unified documentation building for all 3 projects | 21:09:28 | |
In reply to @jade_:matrix.org* i totally agree on the need to explain the tooling that produces the documentation for nix, nixpkgs and nixos, and to figure out how that tooling can deliver split nixpkgs manual, and ideally unified documentation building for all 3 projects | 21:09:34 | |
| if we have a plan for a path forward, we should write it down. if we don't know the path forward we should describe what exists and its status | 21:10:01 | |
| we should start with the latter. for the former, i think the only person atm who has deep familiarity with nrd is its author, pennae. Maybe Johannes Kirschbauer @hsjobeki, who has spent some time looking at it? | 21:10:51 | |
| as to why nrd was chosen over mmdoc, iirc the main argument was that mmdoc being written in c was considered a liability (less people who can theoretically contribute, harder to change/extend without introducing subtle bugs, ...?) | 21:13:19 | |
| mmdoc was built in C with minimal closure concerns in mind | 21:14:50 | |
| nrd was built not in C with accessibility for newcomers in mind and ease of development (and probably more, I cannot speak for pennae) | 21:15:17 | |
| I know both codebases, I don't have deep familiarity with neither, but I can achieve deep familiarity with nrd in stupidly low amount of time | 21:17:01 | |
| It contains of course the hard work of pennae to find the edge cases and what not | 21:17:11 | |
| But beyond that, it's a fairly mundane program | 21:17:17 | |
In reply to @raitobezarius:matrix.orgare you offering help? 🙃 | 21:17:51 | |
| No, but I can be there if there's any rescue-level tasks regarding nrd or this sort of stuff | 21:18:17 | |
| I think it's better if someone else grow experience with nrd :) | 21:18:27 | |
| 13 Jan 2024 | ||
| How feasible are such "docs auto-generation" projects, given the lack of typing systems or other automated verification/compiler-based checks in Nix-the-language? | 00:32:30 | |
At least nixdoc is used already for lib documentation. | 00:33:43 | |
| Tbh I gotta sleep though, good night! | 00:34:48 | |
| Okay, and this is an important background RFC: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0145-doc-strings.md | 00:44:48 | |
In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org is there a plan to use nixdoc to document
| 00:55:48 | |
| there's lots of good comments in the nixpkgs source that aren't visible except by grepping and it would be great to get those rendered into reference docs | 00:56:10 | |
| danielsidhion and bzm3r ... thank you for the PR review suggestions... I think all of them are incorporated except this one https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/277534/files#r1450744275 ... (heading name)... i rationalize why i think it's the right thing in a reply there | 03:19:57 | |
| Redacted or Malformed Event | 09:02:01 | |
In reply to @mcdonc:matrix.org* As I said in my review comments, this is looking really good, and if I had merge powers, I'd hit merge. But I also am not in touch with the details in a way that that infinisil or fricklerhandwerk might be, so it's a good thing I don't have merge powers. Anyway I just want to say, as one new contributor to another, please don't feel frustrated by the fact that this is a process that will take time because both fricklerhandwerk and infinisil:
I would suggest putting it up as a point for discussion in the meeting agenda for next week. It tends to get sorted out super fast in these meetings, because of the communication setup. In the meantime I found it helpful to move onto other projects/PRs. I think of PRs as seeds that I plant... | 09:02:35 | |
| * As I said in my review comments, this is looking really good, and if I had merge powers, I'd hit merge. But I also am not in touch with the details in a way that that infinisil or fricklerhandwerk might be, so it's a good thing I don't have merge powers. Anyway I just want to say, as one new contributor to another, in case you do find it frustrating (not sure): please don't feel (too) frustrated by the fact that this is a process that will take time because both fricklerhandwerk and infinisil:
I would suggest putting it up as a point for discussion in the meeting agenda for next week. It tends to get sorted out super fast in these meetings, because of the communication setup. In the meantime I found it helpful to move onto other projects/PRs. I think of PRs as seeds that I plant... | 09:03:07 | |
In reply to @bzzm3r:matrix.org As the author of rfc145 and the creator of https://noogle.dev i can say: It is very much feasible to autogenerate documentation from doc-comments. At least the API descriptions of all functions in nixpkgs. Roughly 95% of what is in Noogle currently could also be autogenerated by any other tool. I think one of the next important steps is to migrate to "doc-comments" ( asymmetric I've briefly looked into nrd (nixos-render-docs), and opened this issue: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/280514 | 09:07:31 | |
In reply to @johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host But who does the work to ensure that the doc comments match up with the actual code? Also, it seems the doc comments RFC left defining function arguments as "future work"... | 09:09:48 | |