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Discoverability is a problem everywhere in Nix, from configuration options to documentation. Which makes it necessary to learn its weird poorly implemented func

Discoverability is a problem everywhere in Nix, from configuration options to documentation. Which makes it necessary to learn its weird poorly implemented functional programming language and read code. Then there is performance, it's very slow and uses a lot of memory making it impossible to use on a 512 MB vm, for example. If you just want a solution for your packaging management needs - Nix is definitely not it. Nix is more like a thing to get inspired by to make a package manager.

philipov 9y ago
That's nice to hear you say, because I am making a package manager, and I find nix inspiring :p I keep trying to convince myself that someone's already done it better, and there's no point, but then every solution I look at doesn't seem to be good enough.
- jitl 9y ago
  Agreed, it’s an area where nothing is quite there. Take a look at Habitat - another not quite there option, but one with interesting ideas.
  - philipov 9y ago
    What's the downside of Habitat?
    - jitl 9y ago
      I don’t know anyone using it.
taktoa 9y ago
> Then there is performance, it's very slow and uses a lot of memory making it impossible to use on a 512 MB vm, for example. No, this is just a side effect of the CLI user experience being garbage. `nix-env -i <regex>` is almost never what you want, because its semantics are to evaluate everything in nixpkgs, find the set of packages whose `name` attribute is matched by the given regex, and install all of the packages in that set modulo the equivalence relation generated by package `name` equality ignoring version numbers. Instead, you should use `nix-env -iA <channel>.<attribute-path>`, where `<channel>` is the name of a Nix channel (viewable via `nix-channel --list`, usually it is `nixos` or `nixpkgs`) and `<attribute-path>` is a valid attribute path in the nixpkgs package set (these can be discovered by running `nix-repl '<nixpkgs>'` and tab-completing).

philipov 9y ago

That's nice to hear you say, because I am making a package manager, and I find nix inspiring :p I keep trying to convince myself that someone's already done it better, and there's no point, but then every solution I look at doesn't seem to be good enough.

jitl 9y ago
Agreed, it’s an area where nothing is quite there. Take a look at Habitat - another not quite there option, but one with interesting ideas.
- philipov 9y ago
  What's the downside of Habitat?
  - jitl 9y ago
    I don’t know anyone using it.

taktoa 9y ago

> Then there is performance, it's very slow and uses a lot of memory making it impossible to use on a 512 MB vm, for example. No, this is just a side effect of the CLI user experience being garbage. `nix-env -i <regex>` is almost never what you want, because its semantics are to evaluate everything in nixpkgs, find the set of packages whose `name` attribute is matched by the given regex, and install all of the packages in that set modulo the equivalence relation generated by package `name` equality ignoring version numbers. Instead, you should use `nix-env -iA <channel>.<attribute-path>`, where `<channel>` is the name of a Nix channel (viewable via `nix-channel --list`, usually it is `nixos` or `nixpkgs`) and `<attribute-path>` is a valid attribute path in the nixpkgs package set (these can be discovered by running `nix-repl '<nixpkgs>'` and tab-completing).