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I see tons of people very happily using Nix, but also from what I've seen Nix is one of the most opaque hard to understand inscrutable systems on the planet. Th

I see tons of people very happily using Nix, but also from what I've seen Nix is one of the most opaque hard to understand inscrutable systems on the planet. The language is impossible to learn, and my limited experience has been that there are extremely few good guides to peering under the covers. Nix is one of the most powerful & well-used bits of modern computing, hugely adopted and loved, but my limited understanding (and what's kept me broadly uninterested) is that it is on the wrong side of the Age of Reason trying to overthrow the Age of Magic war.

chriswarbo 2y ago
> The language is impossible to learn, and my limited experience has been that there are extremely few good guides to peering under the covers. Maybe my "Nix from the bottom up" page would help? It peers so far "under the covers" that I only introduce the Nix language very briefly near the end (as a saner alternative to everything else on that page!) http://www.chriswarbo.net/projects/nixos/bottom_up.html http://www.chriswarbo.net/projects/nixos/bottom_up.html
jchw 2y ago
Honestly, I suspect a lot of what makes it opaque is the fact that it hinges a lot on functional paradigms, this definitely made it a lot harder for me to understand. The trouble is that now that I understand it, I'm not sure how they could architect this in a more scrutable way. This is the problem. I think most of us who use and love Nix understand that it is too complicated, but it's too complicated because none of us can figure out how to make it simpler.
- infogulch 2y ago
  I'm also nix-curious and intimidated by the wall. I feel like things would be a lot easier to grok if Nix actually had a static type system or even something opt-in instead of "the object has whatever fields I happen to put in it, good luck lol"-typed.
colordrops 2y ago
The language is not the hard thing, it's actually straightforward once you get it. It's the crazy amount of convention and the number of layers in the stack that make up the Nix ecosystem that takes so long to grok.

chriswarbo 2y ago

> The language is impossible to learn, and my limited experience has been that there are extremely few good guides to peering under the covers. Maybe my "Nix from the bottom up" page would help? It peers so far "under the covers" that I only introduce the Nix language very briefly near the end (as a saner alternative to everything else on that page!) http://www.chriswarbo.net/projects/nixos/bottom_up.html http://www.chriswarbo.net/projects/nixos/bottom_up.html

jchw 2y ago

Honestly, I suspect a lot of what makes it opaque is the fact that it hinges a lot on functional paradigms, this definitely made it a lot harder for me to understand. The trouble is that now that I understand it, I'm not sure how they could architect this in a more scrutable way. This is the problem. I think most of us who use and love Nix understand that it is too complicated, but it's too complicated because none of us can figure out how to make it simpler.

infogulch 2y ago
I'm also nix-curious and intimidated by the wall. I feel like things would be a lot easier to grok if Nix actually had a static type system or even something opt-in instead of "the object has whatever fields I happen to put in it, good luck lol"-typed.

colordrops 2y ago

The language is not the hard thing, it's actually straightforward once you get it. It's the crazy amount of convention and the number of layers in the stack that make up the Nix ecosystem that takes so long to grok.