| 22 Nov 2022 |
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| 24 Nov 2022 |
|  fold g l;ls = g l fold g ls joined the room. | 03:24:06 |
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| 25 Nov 2022 |
|  noahdotpy changed their display name from Diligord#9698 to noahdotpy. | 11:40:20 |
| 26 Nov 2022 |
 davidak | In reply to @blaggacao:matrix.org
A really cool gui would be something like an enhanced marktext editor (= "feeling of a blank page") with really good autocompletion and drop downs and maybe a side panel with available options... Something that feels still like text editing but super intuitive for the nixos case. That would be innovative. 😆 it will be user-friendly if a user never sees nix code and don't have to write it. ubuntu users don't have to write configuration files! macOS users also
when users have to become developers to fix the issues of the actual developers, that's a failure | 11:26:28 |
| davidak | the writing configuration.nix approach is for people that configure their desktop system with ansible etc. that how i started with nixos. that's what it good for now. but the majority of computer don't even know what ansible is | 11:28:19 |
| davidak | * the writing configuration.nix approach is for people that configure their desktop system with ansible etc. that's how i started with nixos. that's what nixos is good for now. but the majority of computer users don't even know what ansible is. they should be able to use it | 11:30:09 |
| davidak | which leads to the thought: when every technical detail of nixos is hidden away by user friendly GUI tools and the os feels just like every other (e.g. Ubuntu), what is remaining? and why should anyone use it? what are the selling points? and how will users actually experience that they use a superior system which technology is like 10 years ahead. these are philosophical or ever spiritual questions | 11:36:51 |
 vlinkz | In reply to @davidak:matrix.org
which leads to the thought: when every technical detail of nixos is hidden away by user friendly GUI tools and the os feels just like every other (e.g. Ubuntu), what is remaining? and why should anyone use it? what are the selling points? and how will users actually experience that they use a superior system which technology is like 10 years ahead. these are philosophical or ever spiritual questions I would say that having a configuration.nix file isn't what makes NixOS great, it's the stability, atomicity, ability to rollback, and reproducibility. Although to a non technical person, I'm not sure how appealing those words are. Maybe mentioning how nix solves dependency hell, but again that's pretty technical.
I'm thinking focusing on stability, backups, and simplicity would be best for marketing SnowflakeOS, with an emphasis on it just working. And then market NixOS as more versatile and powerful/customizable. Something similar to Ubuntu/Mint and Debian, or Manjaro and Arch. | 17:33:17 |
 ryantm | Even if the technical details are abstracted away, the users can still benefit from the results of the good technology/community: more packages, recent versions, easier setup of services, better testing, etc. | 17:59:30 |
| 27 Nov 2022 |
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| 29 Nov 2022 |
 David Arnold (blaggacao) | In reply to @vlinkz:matrix.org
I would say that having a configuration.nix file isn't what makes NixOS great, it's the stability, atomicity, ability to rollback, and reproducibility. Although to a non technical person, I'm not sure how appealing those words are. Maybe mentioning how nix solves dependency hell, but again that's pretty technical.
I'm thinking focusing on stability, backups, and simplicity would be best for marketing SnowflakeOS, with an emphasis on it just working. And then market NixOS as more versatile and powerful/customizable. Something similar to Ubuntu/Mint and Debian, or Manjaro and Arch. My wife finds it cool that she can write a programm on a black screen amd then by some magic, it appears in her environment (in the best case and simple case). | 01:22:06 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | That's why I think for some user base, perserving the (creative!) experience of a blank sheet of paper is actually pretty good (as long as it's properly assissted). | 01:23:14 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | Such experience would be even superior to a config menu, since it might capture a user's intent more natively. | 01:23:48 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | You can do funny stuff such as make grayed out suggestions and let the user tab complete. But the user will still have the experience "they" did it themselves. | 01:24:29 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | * You can do funny stuff such as make grayed out suggestions and let the user tab complete. But the user will still have the experience "they" did it themselves. All alone. Like a pro. Hurray! | 01:25:00 |
| vlinkz | In reply to @blaggacao:matrix.org
That's why I think for some user base, perserving the (creative!) experience of a blank sheet of paper is actually pretty good (as long as it's properly assissted). I agree that for some having a blank canvas experience is nice, but at the same time for any non-technically literate person, having options presented to them would be easier than having them research them by themselves. Although I could see the use for an in-between style application that guides users into making a config, although not sure what that would look like. Maybe an advanced IDE, or something more visual like scratch or unreal blueprints | 18:23:01 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | Yeah, it would have to be super assisted for the median intent and intent-sequence (i.e. onboarding story). | 21:38:13 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | I think grayed out paragraphs that you can then type down or tab complete depending on the previous paragraph's choices would be cool. | 21:38:54 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | The guided sequence could be almost the same as the current SnowflakeOS sequences, just the representation and UX would be truely novel. | 21:39:28 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | Once the sequence completes, you have a complete config file. | 21:40:05 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | And then, maybe just a button for "deploy" / "install" (or whatever would be good semantics) | 21:40:35 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | In addition to the onboarding sequence, all NixOS options would need tooltips and autocompletion. | 21:41:24 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | Essentially this means blending "Installer" & "IDE" and combine them into a nivel experience that makes it absolutly clear how darn good NixOS is. | 21:42:55 |
| David Arnold (blaggacao) | * Essentially this means blending "Installer" & "IDE" and combine them into a novel experience that makes it absolutly clear _how_ darn good NixOS is. | 21:43:10 |
| 30 Nov 2022 |
|  H4rdStyl3z joined the room. | 16:09:29 |
