| 4 Aug 2022 |
 Minion3665 | In reply to @rapenne-s:tchncs.de
actually using the nix repl isn't that bad, any other idea for a way to search a package?
In the wiki I'd prefer to avoid the "nix search" experimental command that has to be run near a flake.nix file Nix search doesn't need a flake.nix file
You can run nix search nixpkgs packagename and it'll search in the nixpkgs flake | 12:32:52 |
 Solène Rapenne (she/her) | that's pretty cool, nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" search nixpkgs firefox | 12:33:57 |
| Minion3665 | In reply to @rapenne-s:tchncs.de
that's pretty cool, nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" search nixpkgs firefox Yep
That'll work :) | 12:34:32 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | it's just too bad it needs to download 30MB every so often :D | 12:34:51 |
 a-kenji | In reply to @rapenne-s:tchncs.de
that's pretty cool, nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" search nixpkgs firefox You can also search exact by nixpkgs#firefox | 12:34:56 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | it's not really faster than nix-env -aqP | 12:35:52 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | "we have 5 ways to search packges and most of them are bad" :D | 12:36:03 |
| Minion3665 | In reply to @rapenne-s:tchncs.de
it's not really faster than nix-env -aqP It caches it though, so it's much faster on the next run, and it's much faster on exact matches | 12:36:18 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | indeed, if I re-run it's faster | 12:36:51 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | and pick up where I aborted | 12:36:56 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | now, I think https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Searching_packages is puzzling for new users, how to pick one solution over another? | 12:39:01 |
| Minion3665 | Hmmm, well perhaps we should at least provide a pros/cons section for each of them rather than just some, as that way it's easier to compare
We could maybe even put them in a table but that's probably not necessary | 12:41:49 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | I think pros / cons should be removed, and just add a sentence in the first paragraph to tell they are listed in an order of the most preferable to the least practical | 12:42:47 |
| Solène Rapenne (she/her) | using pros/cons is like having 3 wishes at a djin but you know each one has a drawback :D | 12:44:05 |
| Minion3665 | Haha yes perhaps
Although in this case it is somewhat accurate, so we at least do need to tell the reader about the drawbacks of each approach | 12:46:21 |
 fricklerhandwerk | I agree (and proposed) to list pros/cons, because this is reference. Be honest about what is going on, let the readers judge on their own. Then use the tutorial layer (i.e. nix.dev) to pick the recommended way and link to the reference. | 12:50:07 |
 Sandro 🐧 | just use search.nixos.org | 13:04:04 |
 pennae | how does search.nixos.org get to the data it displays? (if it read docbook we'll have to somehow fix that for the md migration) | 13:12:59 |
 Jan Tojnar | pennae: it uses pypandoc | 15:42:19 |
| Jan Tojnar | well, used before the rust migration | 15:42:38 |
| Jan Tojnar | https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-search/blob/c43ed8c85f11b041db2624cc249f3f1fb68760b2/flake-info/src/data/export.rs#L310 | 15:43:58 |
| pennae | if it can natively read MD there should be no extra trouble, right? | 16:16:38 |
| 5 Aug 2022 |
|  Kira Bruneau joined the room. | 01:24:48 |
| Kira Bruneau changed their display name from daxvena to Kira Bruneau. | 01:24:52 |
| 6 Aug 2022 |
 John Ericson | FYI to all, fricklerhandwerk's and I's reference (and some explanation docs were merged but commented out), and then I fixed up some conflicts and added more new material on my branch, opening https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/6877/files | 03:39:40 |
| John Ericson | I am curious what people think about this split format I went with, also perhaps of commenting out the material we can do some sort of build time flag to show/hide unstable docs | 03:41:01 |
| John Ericson | I do want users to see the new docs, but I also on fond of just brain dumping all the information and then stepping back to edit it into the right format | 03:41:52 |
 olaf | In reply to @Ericson2314:matrix.org
I am curious what people think about this split format I went with, also perhaps of commenting out the material we can do some sort of build time flag to show/hide unstable docs "split format" means 1 sencence per line? yes i think that was fricklerhandwerk suggestion before and i think it is best for collaboratively written documentation.
Commented out "braindumps" are ok i think but there should be additional information so that these comments can also be removed if they are abandoned, information like "[2022.08.01 PR in preparation]" . | 15:23:39 |
| John Ericson | denna: oh the spit format I mean abstract vs concrete | 15:24:04 |
| John Ericson | I introduce a sort of "platonic nix" | 15:24:11 |
