3 ms·

well, an anecdote for an anecdote: reading the definitions of nixos modules became a matter of course for me when i started doing strange stuff that didn't quit

well, an anecdote for an anecdote: reading the definitions of nixos modules became a matter of course for me when i started doing strange stuff that didn't quite fit into the authors' expectations, and those module definitions contain the implementation, i.e. exactly where files are placed and what's written to them. i learned things about how a distro is put together that i never had any reason to look into in the past. but i wasn't referring to how a system is put together at that level; i was referring to how a system is put together with the tool at hand, i.e. nix. and yes, you're right, that is top-down from the latter to the former > What makes Nix/NixOS different are its fundamental principles, not how one approaches it. you'll have no disagreement from me here; i was referring to what qualitatively hooked me, not making any statements about fundamental design

drdaeman 3y ago
Ah, my apologies, I think I've misunderstood you. Yes, absolutely, I agree - reading definitions of those modules is how one learns Nix. Documentation is okay, but it doesn't cover neither the essential theory like patterns, practices and idiomatic approaches, neither implementation specifics (how some particular config file or startup helper script is generated). Although, to be fair - reading source code of how things work is not really specific to Nix. It's just that Nix doesn't stop at packaging and also provides declarative configuration, so there's much more to read in nixpkgs than inside some .deb source (which typically stops at providing a generic systemd unit or rc script). But if someone would be using some other declarative configuration tooling - I'm sure they'll also do a lot of deep diving into the definitions, reading the source code. It's just that Nix is outstanding in this regard - I suppose I can, but I surely wouldn't want to use Terraform, Chef or Ansible for what it does.

drdaeman 3y ago

Ah, my apologies, I think I've misunderstood you. Yes, absolutely, I agree - reading definitions of those modules is how one learns Nix. Documentation is okay, but it doesn't cover neither the essential theory like patterns, practices and idiomatic approaches, neither implementation specifics (how some particular config file or startup helper script is generated). Although, to be fair - reading source code of how things work is not really specific to Nix. It's just that Nix doesn't stop at packaging and also provides declarative configuration, so there's much more to read in nixpkgs than inside some .deb source (which typically stops at providing a generic systemd unit or rc script). But if someone would be using some other declarative configuration tooling - I'm sure they'll also do a lot of deep diving into the definitions, reading the source code. It's just that Nix is outstanding in this regard - I suppose I can, but I surely wouldn't want to use Terraform, Chef or Ansible for what it does.