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I'm starting to see more of a cult attitude with Nix. It is like the Arch Linux crowd (I use Arch) but much worse. I think is is great that Nix has provided som

I'm starting to see more of a cult attitude with Nix. It is like the Arch Linux crowd (I use Arch) but much worse. I think is is great that Nix has provided something valuable to a lot of people, but so does a lot of software and tools. Nix fills a void in package management. It is like Ansible or Terraform for a semi-idempotent distro. It is probably quicker in most ways than building something similar with other configuration management tools, but I still prefer other tools because the language for Nix is just bleh. Had they went with a simple YAML format or HCL, then I'd give it a chance, but because they didn't I'm certain eventually someone will create something better learning from the mistakes of Nix.

xena 5y ago
Author of the post and survivor of several cults here. Nix is nothing like a cult. There is no behavior control, information control, thought control or emotion control at work. There are just people that are passionate about the tool and want to see it thrive. I would hardly call this a cult, more of just an interest group with weird nerds in it. Honestly after a while the language starts to fade into the background and you just focus on what you are doing. Keep in mind that I am an expert at this point and have prior experience with Lisp, Haskell and a little bit of ML; so the overall flow of the configuration language and the like is easy for me to feel my way into. I have been trying to work on documentation to help get people up to that level; but trying to explain things you understand intuitively is hard :) I'm trying though. With my Nix flakes series I'm probably going to rebase a lot of it around using NixOS with WSL to make it easier to approach for newcomers.
- thrown12 5y ago
  - viraptor 5y ago
    Survivor of a cult does not necessarily mean that someone joined a cult themselves. Kids escaping environment they were born in may be survivors of a cult. People with spouses who joined a cult may be survivors. Environments may change, leaving a mainstream church in a specific area may mean leaving a cult. Etc. Don't look down on them unless you know all the details.
    - thrown12 5y ago
      Sure, _one_ cult, but several? Mom being in the Shining Path and Dad in Heaven's Gate sounds like it would make for rather awkward dinners.
      - viraptor 5y ago
        You're using extreme examples of cults. Parents getting too much into Catholicism may be a seen as a cult. A group going full hippie may be seen as a cult. If it badly impacts your environment and you can't easily leave it, I'm not going to dispute the label.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      In fairness, I think it's hard to environmentally fall into "several" cults. If there are several, chances are high that perhaps even a majority were entered into voluntarily. I don't mean this as a dig on the OP.
  - xena 5y ago
    A positive about that whole experience is that it's made me way better at clickbait, which seems to have worked because you've been interacting with my content at all. One cannot choose where they incarnate in this plane. Nor can they choose the religious preferences of the people they incarnate around. You kinda have to just roll with the punches and hope something decent comes out of everything.
    - thrown12 5y ago
      > A positive about that whole experience is that it's made me way better at clickbait, which seems to have worked because you've been interacting with my content at all. Sure, it's also made me less likely to install NixOS. Funny way to try and help a project, but what do I know, I haven't been in a cult and I'm terrible at clickbait.
      - xena 5y ago
        I hope you feel happy with your life choices. Be well.
  - ElonMuskrat 5y ago
    > tells me you're the type of person to be suckered into them in the future. Wow. I'm sure you have all the research and experience to vomit that psychoanalytic gem with authority.
viraptor 5y ago
> It is like Ansible or Terraform for a semi-idempotent distro "Like" does a lot of work here. Those systems go one way: what if we applied this concept to managing existing systems. Nix goes the other: what if we built a system around this concept. I think that's a nice elevator pitch, but misses a lot otherwise.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  > Nix goes the other: what if we built a system around this concept. This is what I'm referring to. There isn't anything currently as far as I'm aware that takes it as far as Nix. Sure, Arch has archinstall and there is also cloud-init. There are examples of using JSON to help manage that: https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/master/examples/config-sample.json https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/master/example... But, ultimately I believe a lightweight Go/Rust tool that takes a YAML file and does essentially the same thing will prevail.
  - jbboehr 5y ago
    But it seems like everything that uses YAML has to reinvent programming languages in YAML, and YAML has it's own share of footguns. At least Nix is designed for it's purpose.
snowytrees 5y ago
What’s powerful about nix is the language IMO. I was able to build an automatic WireGuard setup[1] with tagging that automatically works on each new machine thanks to the ability to do config as code. Just provide some basic config for each machine and the code turns it into an interface with peers. The issue to me isn’t the language persay (it’s really a tiny surface area language, see the built in/lib functions [2]) but the tooling built around packaging is a hodgepodge mess of semi-documented workarounds (with Nixpkgs blessed ways vs user libraries) and is extremely difficult to approach and understand. [1]: https://github.com/jordanisaacs/dotfiles https://github.com/jordanisaacs/dotfiles [2]: https://teu5us.github.io/nix-lib.html https://teu5us.github.io/nix-lib.html

xena 5y ago

Author of the post and survivor of several cults here. Nix is nothing like a cult. There is no behavior control, information control, thought control or emotion control at work. There are just people that are passionate about the tool and want to see it thrive. I would hardly call this a cult, more of just an interest group with weird nerds in it. Honestly after a while the language starts to fade into the background and you just focus on what you are doing. Keep in mind that I am an expert at this point and have prior experience with Lisp, Haskell and a little bit of ML; so the overall flow of the configuration language and the like is easy for me to feel my way into. I have been trying to work on documentation to help get people up to that level; but trying to explain things you understand intuitively is hard :) I'm trying though. With my Nix flakes series I'm probably going to rebase a lot of it around using NixOS with WSL to make it easier to approach for newcomers.

thrown12 5y ago
- viraptor 5y ago
  Survivor of a cult does not necessarily mean that someone joined a cult themselves. Kids escaping environment they were born in may be survivors of a cult. People with spouses who joined a cult may be survivors. Environments may change, leaving a mainstream church in a specific area may mean leaving a cult. Etc. Don't look down on them unless you know all the details.
  - thrown12 5y ago
    Sure, _one_ cult, but several? Mom being in the Shining Path and Dad in Heaven's Gate sounds like it would make for rather awkward dinners.
    - viraptor 5y ago
      You're using extreme examples of cults. Parents getting too much into Catholicism may be a seen as a cult. A group going full hippie may be seen as a cult. If it badly impacts your environment and you can't easily leave it, I'm not going to dispute the label.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    In fairness, I think it's hard to environmentally fall into "several" cults. If there are several, chances are high that perhaps even a majority were entered into voluntarily. I don't mean this as a dig on the OP.
- xena 5y ago
  A positive about that whole experience is that it's made me way better at clickbait, which seems to have worked because you've been interacting with my content at all. One cannot choose where they incarnate in this plane. Nor can they choose the religious preferences of the people they incarnate around. You kinda have to just roll with the punches and hope something decent comes out of everything.
  - thrown12 5y ago
    > A positive about that whole experience is that it's made me way better at clickbait, which seems to have worked because you've been interacting with my content at all. Sure, it's also made me less likely to install NixOS. Funny way to try and help a project, but what do I know, I haven't been in a cult and I'm terrible at clickbait.
    - xena 5y ago
      I hope you feel happy with your life choices. Be well.
- ElonMuskrat 5y ago
  > tells me you're the type of person to be suckered into them in the future. Wow. I'm sure you have all the research and experience to vomit that psychoanalytic gem with authority.

viraptor 5y ago

> It is like Ansible or Terraform for a semi-idempotent distro "Like" does a lot of work here. Those systems go one way: what if we applied this concept to managing existing systems. Nix goes the other: what if we built a system around this concept. I think that's a nice elevator pitch, but misses a lot otherwise.

encryptluks2 5y ago
> Nix goes the other: what if we built a system around this concept. This is what I'm referring to. There isn't anything currently as far as I'm aware that takes it as far as Nix. Sure, Arch has archinstall and there is also cloud-init. There are examples of using JSON to help manage that: https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/master/examples/config-sample.json https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/master/example... But, ultimately I believe a lightweight Go/Rust tool that takes a YAML file and does essentially the same thing will prevail.
- jbboehr 5y ago
  But it seems like everything that uses YAML has to reinvent programming languages in YAML, and YAML has it's own share of footguns. At least Nix is designed for it's purpose.

snowytrees 5y ago

What’s powerful about nix is the language IMO. I was able to build an automatic WireGuard setup[1] with tagging that automatically works on each new machine thanks to the ability to do config as code. Just provide some basic config for each machine and the code turns it into an interface with peers. The issue to me isn’t the language persay (it’s really a tiny surface area language, see the built in/lib functions [2]) but the tooling built around packaging is a hodgepodge mess of semi-documented workarounds (with Nixpkgs blessed ways vs user libraries) and is extremely difficult to approach and understand. [1]: https://github.com/jordanisaacs/dotfiles https://github.com/jordanisaacs/dotfiles [2]: https://teu5us.github.io/nix-lib.html https://teu5us.github.io/nix-lib.html