Re: Time for a request-for-comments process?

[jbranso]

October 27, 2021 5:23 PM, "Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> Hello Guix!
> 
> The recent ‘guix shell’ addition is almost anecdotal technically yet
> important for the project because users interact with Guix primarily
> through the CLI. Adding a new command is a commitment (our users must
> trust it won’t change overnight), and getting the details wrong could
> make us fail to honor that commitment.
> 
> For ‘guix shell’ I left time for comments and repeatedly asked people to
> comment; yet pushing it was a bit stressful: Did I make a mistake? Did
> everyone with a stake in this really have a chance to comment?

I absolutely love the new guix shell! "-ad-hoc" was a bit confusing to
understand.  I know more about guix shell in 5 minutes than I did with
a few years of guix environment!  

> That makes me think it’s perhaps time for a formalized
> request-for-comments (RFC) kind of process for such “major changes”. We
> could draw inspiration from one of the many existing processes: Python’s
> PEPs, Scheme’s SRFIs, Nix’s RFCs, Rust’s MCPs, etc. I think a major
> goal of the process would be to formalize a minimum and a maximum
> duration under which an RFC is under evaluation, and a mechanism to
> determine whether it’s accepted or withdrawn.

I'm all for a RFC!  Somehow I missed any communication about this new
guix shell, and I normally follow the mailing lists like a 11th grade
stalker (not that I have any experience with stalking...I can't really
discuss it until the lawsuit is over...).

But then again my comments are perhaps not as weighty as others?  I have
only really been the occasional guix documentation writer.  

> Thoughts? Anyone with experience with such a process?
> 
> Ludo’.