aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/README
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorChristopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>2020-02-01 10:40:11 +0100
committerChristopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>2020-02-01 10:40:11 +0100
commite5e9442b44ec03918501d85f991b65cd5bb545c6 (patch)
treee072e07f67c5145a0d8b3fdc86b2d5e0a97291d0 /README
parentee82c2c71d8338d5f4ac567752723869e138514a (diff)
downloaddata-service-e5e9442b44ec03918501d85f991b65cd5bb545c6.tar
data-service-e5e9442b44ec03918501d85f991b65cd5bb545c6.tar.gz
Add an Overview section to the README
To try and provide some information about the motivation for the Guix Data Service.
Diffstat (limited to 'README')
-rw-r--r--README20
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/README b/README
index 9599705..1638a92 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -6,6 +6,26 @@ time.
It's written in Guile, stores data in a PostgreSQL database, and provides a
web interface and API to browse and access the data.
+* Overview
+
+The aim of the Guix Data Service is to provide a complementary interface to
+Guix itself, providing a different way of interacting with Guix data, which
+hopefully enables tools and services that otherwise wouldn't be feasible to
+write.
+
+For example, with the command line tooling or Guile API for Guix, you can
+quickly and easily access information about packages, and manipulate
+derivations. However, if you wish to compare two revisions of Guix, or look at
+the history of the derivations for a package over recent Guix revisions, it
+could take some time until you have the information you're looking for.
+
+However, with the Guix Data Service, this information can be gathered
+continuously, and stored in a a manor that makes these kind of queries much
+quicker to answer. By storing data abount multiple Guix revisions in a SQL
+database (PostgreSQL), it becomes possible to quickly compare the data for
+different revisions. By configuring the Guix Data Service to listen for
+changes in the Guix Git repository, the database can be kept up to date.
+
* Local Development
There's no one right way of doing local development, but outlined here is a