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Agreed but I've found when you eventually wrestle with it you get amazing powers. E.g. Patching a system package from source in a completely reproducible way, w

Agreed but I've found when you eventually wrestle with it you get amazing powers. E.g. Patching a system package from source in a completely reproducible way, while still remaining synchronised for package upgrades. (Assuming the patch still applies.) All in about ten lines of code. They're called overlays if anyone is curious.

saghm 3y ago
As someone who hasn't done more than dabble in Nix one weekend a few years ago, I don't doubt how powerful it is, but I'm not fully convinced that similar power couldn't be achieved with a better UX. My sense is that most people who voice concerns like the parent comment probably feel the same; right now, the amount of "activation energy" needed to get to the point where it's worth it feels too high, and I don't know if it's more likely that Nix will fix that (either in terms of better UX or documentation) or if someone else will come up with something that managed to give a better tradeoff in terms of amount of work needed to get started.