4 ms·

So why not run nix in docker till Windows gets first class support?

• pjmlp 7y ago
  Because it is a kludge without support for Windows development workflows?
  • patrec 7y ago
    That's an excellent reason not to -- I wasn't previously aware that docker had native windows application support on windows.
• squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Will it? Nix solves a unixy problem in a unixy way. The Nix/WSL story might get happier at some point to solve a problem for Windows based developers of Linux based servers, but that's effectively just "running nix in docker", except that the interface is WSL instead of Docker. I know some people write Windows software from Nix, but this is a way for Linux developers to make desktop apps for Windows users, not a solution to any problem Windows developers have.
  • patrec 7y ago
    I can see three broad reasons people develop on Windows: 1. They want to create a Game or Windows end user UI App (e.g. Overwatch or Photoshop) 2. They write some internal corp tooling or B2B software for windows shops (e.g. gluing some SAP or Oracle garbage together) 3. They want to write a server application (which means deploying on linux, which is basically the only server OS left). But they do not want to run linux as their desktop OS for corp or private reasons. The 1st category probably has limited use for either docker or nix (in the absence of first class windows support). Might still be useful for tooling though. The second category probably has use for docker mostly as a shitty linker, maybe also for isolation/security (I don't know the windows docker ecosystem). The 3rd category can and totally should be using nix and I'd guess is at least double digit market share (so not insignificant; e.g. before Google banned them, a large fraction of Googlers had windows notebooks).