From e5e9442b44ec03918501d85f991b65cd5bb545c6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christopher Baines Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2020 10:40:11 +0100 Subject: Add an Overview section to the README To try and provide some information about the motivation for the Guix Data Service. --- README | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+) 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 -- cgit v1.2.3