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> it just needs to be manually enabled under 'experimental-features' Same with flakes. My impression is that Nix is either on the cusp of a major paradigm and

> it just needs to be manually enabled under 'experimental-features' Same with flakes. My impression is that Nix is either on the cusp of a major paradigm and usability change, or the status quo will be forever in a state of having "wrong defaults."

pxc 4y ago
> My impression is that Nix is either on the cusp of a major paradigm and usability change, or the status quo will be forever in a state of having "wrong defaults." I think probably both. The Nix community is host to very diverse and partially overlapping experimentation, and features like rollbacks and version pinning make the bleeding edge feel relatively safe, further fostering such experimentation. The new Nix CLI will be huge for new users and for adoption once it's finalized. But there will probably always be a bunch of Nix users doing weird, cool shit that everyone kinda wishes was 'here already' for mainstream use.
- easygenes 4y ago
  FWIW, I'd say the new Nix CLI should see broader adoption soon. It was only just around the beginning of 2022 that they started signaling it was mature and there's been good progress to improve things like Home Manager compatibility with the new session format brought with the new CLI since. I think mostly now a few people just need to step up to overhaul the docs.
  - pxc 4y ago
    I agree that critical mass with third-party Nix code, especially in important projects like Home Manager and Nix-Darwin, is crucial and it's almost there. I don't want to rush the finalization of flakes or the new CLI, though, eager as I am to see them come out from behind the 'experimental' flag. There's clearly still a lot of work, including bugfixes, going into the flakes implementation.
pca006132 4y ago
I think the really crazy default is that flakes by default will not include git submodules, you need to pass a special flag to enable it, which is undocumented and have to dig through github issues: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/4423 https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/4423

pxc 4y ago

> My impression is that Nix is either on the cusp of a major paradigm and usability change, or the status quo will be forever in a state of having "wrong defaults." I think probably both. The Nix community is host to very diverse and partially overlapping experimentation, and features like rollbacks and version pinning make the bleeding edge feel relatively safe, further fostering such experimentation. The new Nix CLI will be huge for new users and for adoption once it's finalized. But there will probably always be a bunch of Nix users doing weird, cool shit that everyone kinda wishes was 'here already' for mainstream use.

easygenes 4y ago
FWIW, I'd say the new Nix CLI should see broader adoption soon. It was only just around the beginning of 2022 that they started signaling it was mature and there's been good progress to improve things like Home Manager compatibility with the new session format brought with the new CLI since. I think mostly now a few people just need to step up to overhaul the docs.
- pxc 4y ago
  I agree that critical mass with third-party Nix code, especially in important projects like Home Manager and Nix-Darwin, is crucial and it's almost there. I don't want to rush the finalization of flakes or the new CLI, though, eager as I am to see them come out from behind the 'experimental' flag. There's clearly still a lot of work, including bugfixes, going into the flakes implementation.

pca006132 4y ago

I think the really crazy default is that flakes by default will not include git submodules, you need to pass a special flag to enable it, which is undocumented and have to dig through github issues: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/4423 https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/4423