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The problem here is (EDIT: IMHO) a social one. The question is not "Why does nobody USE NixOS?", it's "Why does nobody WANT NixOS?" And the answer to that is t
by kaeluka 10y ago
The problem here is (EDIT: IMHO) a social one. The question is not "Why does nobody USE NixOS?", it's "Why does nobody WANT NixOS?"
And the answer to that is that the incentives are set up such that reproducibility is a waste of time. As a CS researcher, I want to be idealistic. But the field is competitive and I'm not sure how much idealism I can afford.
There's considerable effort to bring artifact evaluation into the academic mainstream (I'm actually helping out at OOPSLA this year [1]), and I think this is a good way forward.
[1] http://2016.splashcon.org/track/splash-2016-artifacts http://2016.splashcon.org/track/splash-2016-artifacts
- Ericson2314 10y agoI'm not trying to argue the wrong-headed institutional incentives are irrelevant. It is true that once one gets over the learning curve, Nix* gives you artifact reproducability for free, but that still leaves the problem of the learning curve, and caring about reproducability in the first place. Thank you for yours, and others', work making artifact evaluation a priority. Concurrently, people (including myself) are trying to do something about that learning curve. Hopefully both efforts will massively succeed within a decade :).
- kaeluka 10y agoSorry if I've come on too strong. I might've gotten a bit defensive. I've done work in the past that is hard to reproduce and that's not an aspect of my work I'm proud of -- to say the least. Btw, I'm excited about NixOS. It sounds like you're involved. Thank you. I haven't used it, but I'm hoping to find the time soon.
- Ericson2314 10y agoNo you definitely didn't :). I'd say probably a common HN bias is to ignore institutional forces when it is convenient. Glad to hear you are excited about NixOS!