Alright, last message I will probably have time to answer in some time. But since I introduced the tool, I feel like at least I need to give the rationale.
Olivier Dion <[email protected]> writes: > My only concern with Zulip is indexing by search engines. This is an > ongoing issue [0] that has not been implemented yet. IRC and mailing > lists do not have this fundamental limitation. Olivier brings a very valid concern. We want a tool inclusive for newcomers, a tool that can gather all those small bite sized pieces of knowledge that gets lost in the different communication channels we have. For example, at Guix Days, Janneke was very happy when I shared with him some tips and tricks regarding the `emacs-guix' package REPL breaking, and some filters for the comint buffers. The point is, much of the very important knowledge is somewhere lost in the sea of communication tools our community uses, and we need a tool that brings to the surface all this hidden knowledge from our darkest alleys. As an exercise to the reader, I encourage you to try to find a conversation about packaging Zulip in Guix that took place on the official Zulip development community[1]. [1] https://zulip.com/development-community And for comparison, you can try to find out from where I salvaged the Guix port of ZMK[2]. It's on the Guix devel mailing list. If you need to cheat, the Codeberg description of the repository I link has a reference to the source message from the Guix devel mailing list. [2] https://codeberg.org/pastor/guix-zmk Going back to Olivier's concern. Those of you that have tried to find the Zulip message through the Zulip global search, should have found it easily. On the other hand, those who have tried to find it through your search engine, with prompts such as "Packaging Zulip in Guix" will probably have not found it. Zulip seems to have a scriptable Python API. So I'm wondering whether we set something up that the search engine would index, such as gathering all topics created in Zulip and exposing them in a way that can be indexed and reference the correct room/topic. We need some exploration on this regard. > Know that I've talked about Zulip with Sergio, extensively, before Guix > Days and I am all for it. I really think this could boost the Guix > community but also the Guile ecosystem at large. I just wanted to point > out this limitation. I didn't have anyone else that would listen to me crying :p All jokes aside, during the development of BLUE, we found ourselves wanting to collaborate with different Guile projects, and the fragmentation of the community made it impractical in a way that completely restrained any collaboration. We want to be able to ping Spritely to discuss how the backtraces enhancements play with Goblins, we want to speak with Janneke about what BLUE is missing for properly replacing Autotools in Dezyne[3], we want to collaborate with Andrew to integrate his development environment with our Guile development quality of life improvements. To reach everyone I mentioned and have some small talks during development, we need Matrix, Mail, and Telegram. Yes, we could have sent a mail, but this is inconvenient for the type of dynamic conversations we wanted to have, so what ended up happening was that we simply didn't communicate. [3] https://cgit.git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/dezyne.git Another thing important for us is to have regular meetings through Jitsi while Spritely, I believe uses BigBlueButton, and Zulip seems to allow you to integrate with different call providers[4]. [4] https://zulip.com/integrations/category/communication With all that said, I'm not saying that Zulip is the tool to fit everyone needs, but it surely checks a lot of boxes for us. So I would like to encourage everyone to share what they need to ease their collaboration with the community, instead of discussing if they like this or that tool. Once we know everyone needs, we can argue whether Zulip can fit their goals. Best regards, Sergio PS: I'm quite occupied lately, so I won't be able to participate much in the conversation, but I hope everyone feels welcomed to share their concerns and feedback. I will read you eventually!
