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I love the idea of Nix, but every time I go back to it I've forgotten the syntax. So it feels much more of a lever. I think something built on the same ideas bu
by lmm 3y ago
I love the idea of Nix, but every time I go back to it I've forgotten the syntax. So it feels much more of a lever. I think something built on the same ideas but with a more standard configuration language (which I guess is what Guix was meant to be?) could be a great ratchet.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoIt’s basically JSON, but with ; instead of , at the end of object fields and = instead of : The “programming language” part is basically an untyped ML: function application doesn’t need any parentheses or commas between arguments
- gmfawcett 3y agoSure, it's basically JSON with semicolons... that's used to define a graph of nested lambdas which are evaluated recursively until a fixpoint representing the stable configuration is reached. Also, you can add comments, which makes it nicer than JSON!
- unshavedyak 3y agoFor me it’s not the language, the language seems quite small in fact. It’s the damn magic functions. They’re everywhere, and the difficulty to find the function docs can be drastically variable. It would be a lot better if you could effectively trace your config like a program with debug breakpoints, but I’ve not found that to exist. I look forward to Nickel integration and never touching Nix again tbh.