One way of thinking about Nix is like A Makefile on steroids. It will build what is needed for the right platform. It is also smart enough that you can add cach

One way of thinking about Nix is like A Makefile on steroids. It will build what is needed for the right platform. It is also smart enough that you can add cache server and when it needs something that already is in the cache[1] it will download and use binary package seamlessly. Those packages are built from the same sources with same (or almost the same) configuration options and for all intents and purposes should be nearly identical. So while you use your devenv, it will download and use the right packages for your architecture, and if something is missing on the cache server it will build it locally. Now as ARM Mac's are as popular as the intel ones, people are making sure that the packages build on both. [1] nix generates a hash which is based on the package source code, compile options, architecture etc. and uses that for the lookup.