Declarative programming for Digital Preservationists @ NTTW8

by @beet_keeper

Just released on the No Time to Wait (NTTW) YouTube channel is my presentation from NTTW8 in Karlsruhe, Germany. (Slides also available here).

The presentation follows up on my proposal for iPRES 2024 and allowed me to present parts of what was, in the end, a pretty significant paper (in terms of word count).

Some of my reflections on the presentation are below.

#Code #Coding #Conferences #declarative #declarativeLanguages #declarativeProgramming #jsonid #KVAL #kvalAccessLanguage #NoTimeToWait #NTTW #NTTW8 #NTTW9 #Programming #programmingParadigms #software #SoftwareDevelopment #talks

Infat – Declaritive application assocation manager for macOS

https://github.com/philocalyst/infat

#HackerNews #Infat #Declarative #application #association #manager #macOS #GitHub #OpenSource

Declarative Web Push – WebKit

https://webkit.org/blog/16535/meet-declarative-web-push/

#HackerNews #Declarative #Web #Push #WebKit #WebDevelopment #PushNotifications #TechNews

Interested in #containers, #docker, #OCI and #guix #declarative #configuration?

Watch Giacomo Leidi's talk about self-hosting @forgejo using Guix's container backed configuration. Check it out 👇

https://youtu.be/MWwunOoj-PI

His Gocix project shows how to bring together container-based software while benefiting from the resilience of declarative configuration! He has services for #prometheus #grafana #traefik #bonfire and more!

@paulbutgold

Want #cloudnative but with the power of #declarative configuration? The recoverability of #transactions for system configuration?

Wednesday it's the online #guix meet-up! With a great talk by @paulbutgold
about running docker / oci containers using the Guix configuration system.

His Gocix project has #prometheus, #grafana, #forgejo, #conduit and #traefik examples.

Meet-up details:

https://www.meetup.com/guix-social/events/306340848/

#nix #linux #oci #docker #selfhosting

@nimue You need #transactions and #declarative configuration! That way if something goes wrong you can revert to a known good version before the update.

Check out #guix (or #nix), if you want to try something "completely different" - bit of a learning curve though - but very rewarding.

Is #openSUSE going for #declarative with the introduction of #Agama ? 🤔

https://agama-project.github.io/

For #guix social I'm going to do a talk for #beginners on trying #guix as a #linux distribution. Basically, how to install Guix System, and getting started.

I'm going to do it in a #kvm #vm as that's an easy way to try the #nix derived #declarative goodness without fully committing.

What do you think the key things are to cover? Any particular sticky areas? Anything that was super interesting when you were getting started? What do #beginners need to know?

#programming #example #tutorial #commonLisp #series #declarative #functionalProgramming #lazyEvaluation #medium #article

https://medium.com/@screwlisp/common-lisp-lazy-efficient-series-example-1567d389a28d

I cover
- getting series and using it in a package
- Series' mapping
- Series' iteration (perform a side effect for the whole series, return nothing)
- Series' alter (in-place destructive modification of its input sequence)

Medium.com says it's possible to read my article in two minutes. Feel free to respond with the number of minutes it took you.

What kinds of contributions do people make to #guix ?

As a #GNU #Linux package manager and distribution unsurprisingly most send patches to update packages.

But people also help by reviewing patches, handling and testing bugs, writing documentation and translating.

And it's easy to get started - there's even a handy web page:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/contribute/

And if you're at #FOSDEM there will be plenty of #guix people at the #Declarative computing room on Sunday, or maybe even the #Nixos room

How is #guix used as a #GNU #Linux #distro ?

System level packages are managed through #declarative configuration same as #nixos . User level packages using Guix Home.

Roughly 50% use guix home to manage their #dotfiles - big increase over hosted users.

40% to package their own #software - 36% for #isolated #development.

Lots of requests to deal with #dev dependencies (e.g. Python's requirements.txt) and languages like #rust #golang and #npm

See:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-2/

About 50% of users adopt #guix as a #gnu #linux distribution. Most in a #linux #desktop config.

That surprised me as it's harder than starting with it as a hosted package manager.

A lot of #linux #developers are interested in #declarative configuration. Feels like people are experimenting with #nix and #guix. Users commonly mentioned #nixos #archlinux #debian and #ubuntu

About 5% initially adopt as a server, and then when they have confidence it goes up to about a third. That's cool!

@sigismundninja whoop whoop for #guix being #hipster 💪

We're just running the results of our user survey and the love of #declarative, #reproducibility has seen lots of new users! Also #guix has #lisp which is as #hipster as #linux can get!

Check out this blog post:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/

Runs well in a #kvm #vm and there's a #debian package ;-))

#guix is growing and many new users are adopting it!

Almost 75% of the user-base are recent adopters having used it for less than 4 years. 50% less than 2 years!

It's a similar to #Nix who's survey showed 65% of users were 0-2 years.

There's been a surge of interest in the benefits of #declarative and #reproducibility.

And with #guix we also get #lisp and #gnu #freesoftware - but don't worry you don't _have_ to use #emacs to use Guix (said the #vim user)

See:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/

The #guix survey also showed that our users are knowledgeable #Linux people. Almost 50% are experts/advanced and 47% are intermediate!

A lot of the attraction is the #nix value of declarative configuration and reproducibility. Users also identified that Scheme, Guile and Lisp are cool! Perhaps the overlap of two different communities! That was my path from #clojure and #ubuntu /#debian

See Q1 in the post:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/

#scheme #emacs #guile #lisp #declarative #reproducible

#Coding_Fridays : Estimation of cos(x) via dynamic series in Clojure

This is a very simple code snippet demonstrating the basic syntax of Clojure, which is considered as an "improved LISP" but with very important additional advantages, like being JVM-based and very closely tied to Java idioms.

Watch the full video in Youtube channel central -- https://www.youtube.com/@apneacoding

#ambient #coding #programming #notalking #clojure #terminal #console #declarative #functional

#Coding_Fridays : Estimation of cos(x) via dynamic series in Clojure

This is a very simple code snippet demonstrating the basic syntax of Clojure, which is considered as an "improved LISP" but with very important additional advantages, like being JVM-based and very closely tied to Java idioms.

Watch the full video in Youtube channel central -- https://www.youtube.com/@apneacoding

#ambient #coding #programming #notalking #clojure #terminal #console #declarative #functional

#Coding_Fridays : Fibonacci numbers calculation in Clojure

Watch the full video in Youtube channel central -- https://www.youtube.com/@apneacoding

Enable captions for more details and walk-through. Source code available at the Github repository (see channel info).

#ambient #coding #programming #notalking #clojure #terminal #console #declarative #functional

#Coding_Fridays : Fibonacci numbers calculation in Clojure

Watch the full video in Youtube channel central -- https://www.youtube.com/@apneacoding

Enable captions for more details and walk-through. Source code available at the Github repository (see channel info).

#ambient #coding #programming #notalking #clojure #terminal #console #declarative #functional

#Coding_Fridays : Fibonacci numbers calculation in Elixir

This is a very simple code snippet demonstrating the basic syntax of Elixir, which is considered as one of the 'pure' functional languages with a rich set of idioms.

See the full video in Youtube channel central -- https://www.youtube.com/@apneacoding

Source code available at the Github repository (see channel info).

#ambient #coding #programming #notalking #elixir #terminal #console #declarative #functional