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While I really love nix and nixos, I must say that Nixpkgs development is just out of control. There are over 5k issues and almost 4k PRs open. Reviewers are fa

While I really love nix and nixos, I must say that Nixpkgs development is just out of control. There are over 5k issues and almost 4k PRs open. Reviewers are far fewer in number than contributors and there are multiple instances of low-quality packaging. Some features that most beginners want (for example, easily packaging nodejs programs) are still not there. Lack of standard is a heavy issue and there are many ways of doing the same.

achooie 4y ago
I agree with what you’re saying, but I have to say that using `npmlock2nix` was really easy. Things are changing and improving all the time, which is good but also creates these sorts of problems.
jrmurray 4y ago
Yea I think the main issue holding nix back is lack of documentation/standards on how to do things. Like the other commenter mentioned how npmlock2nix exists but it's hard to figure out that these tools exists. Im hoping that flakes help solve alot of problems to make it easier for users to jump in. Then hopefully the documentation problem will naturally start going away as more people start using nix.
- rgoulter 4y ago
  From the 2022 Nix Survey's results: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2022-nix-survey-results/18983 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2022-nix-survey-results/18983 The main pain points people identified: - Getting started with Nix is hard. - The documentation isn't great for getting started, for getting some task done, and is spread across many places. - Debugging bad Nix code is hard. - Contributing back to Nix is hard. Despite the above, I think most of the respondents had just started using Nix within the last year or two. I think some of the Summer of Nix effort is towards improving documentation. e.g. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/summer-of-nix-documentation-stream/20351 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/summer-of-nix-documentation-st...
- WhyNotHugo 4y ago
  Bad or missing documentation on Nix is a known issue. I think a big part of this issue is that the language itself doesn't have a mechanism to provide documentation. Python has docstrings, Java has javadoc, Hare has haredoc, Lua has emmylua... etc. Every language has SOME WAY of leaving explanation on what a function does, and what values it takes. Nix doesn't seem to have such a thing (if it does, it's a well-kept secret!). Functions being lazy doesn't help, since that makes it very hard for tools to provide feedback without actually executing the right codepaths. And finding the definition of a function is HARD.
  - ywei3410 4y ago
    It sort of does for modules [1] but not functions iirc. [1] https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Declaration https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Declaration
Avamander 4y ago
> Lack of standard is a heavy issue and there are many ways of doing the same. I'd partially blame the software as well. You can't standardise what doesn't want to follow standards. A lot of software or their developers work against the Nix model, some do so actively. The most visible example is the XDG-BD standard (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory), but there are a bunch of other things like that which make packaging difficult.

achooie 4y ago

I agree with what you’re saying, but I have to say that using `npmlock2nix` was really easy. Things are changing and improving all the time, which is good but also creates these sorts of problems.

jrmurray 4y ago

Yea I think the main issue holding nix back is lack of documentation/standards on how to do things. Like the other commenter mentioned how npmlock2nix exists but it's hard to figure out that these tools exists. Im hoping that flakes help solve alot of problems to make it easier for users to jump in. Then hopefully the documentation problem will naturally start going away as more people start using nix.

rgoulter 4y ago
From the 2022 Nix Survey's results: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2022-nix-survey-results/18983 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2022-nix-survey-results/18983 The main pain points people identified: - Getting started with Nix is hard. - The documentation isn't great for getting started, for getting some task done, and is spread across many places. - Debugging bad Nix code is hard. - Contributing back to Nix is hard. Despite the above, I think most of the respondents had just started using Nix within the last year or two. I think some of the Summer of Nix effort is towards improving documentation. e.g. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/summer-of-nix-documentation-stream/20351 https://discourse.nixos.org/t/summer-of-nix-documentation-st...
WhyNotHugo 4y ago
Bad or missing documentation on Nix is a known issue. I think a big part of this issue is that the language itself doesn't have a mechanism to provide documentation. Python has docstrings, Java has javadoc, Hare has haredoc, Lua has emmylua... etc. Every language has SOME WAY of leaving explanation on what a function does, and what values it takes. Nix doesn't seem to have such a thing (if it does, it's a well-kept secret!). Functions being lazy doesn't help, since that makes it very hard for tools to provide feedback without actually executing the right codepaths. And finding the definition of a function is HARD.
- ywei3410 4y ago
  It sort of does for modules [1] but not functions iirc. [1] https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Declaration https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Declaration

Avamander 4y ago

> Lack of standard is a heavy issue and there are many ways of doing the same. I'd partially blame the software as well. You can't standardise what doesn't want to follow standards. A lot of software or their developers work against the Nix model, some do so actively. The most visible example is the XDG-BD standard (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory), but there are a bunch of other things like that which make packaging difficult.