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Nix the language has issues for sure (error messages for starters), but "complexity" isn't really one of them IMO. It's quite a small and simple language. The
by gipp 2y ago
Nix the language has issues for sure (error messages for starters), but "complexity" isn't really one of them IMO. It's quite a small and simple language.
The complexity comes in with the ecosystem and nix-the-build-system, each of which has a dozen different ways to do any given thing, all of which are in active use simultaneously. Some are pretty baffling, like nixpkgs' dual role as both the main package repository and the (almost entirely undocumented) de facto standard library
- moojd 2y agoExactly this. One of the first things I tell people struggling with nix is that nix is simple and almost all of the complexity lives in nixpkgs. Knowing where to look for help (is this a nix, flakes, NixOS, or nixpkgs thing?) is one of the hardest problems for beginners. Nixpkgs specifically needs to be entirely rethought. It has become too large and complex to manage both technically and politically with the number of contributors. Separating out the lib, stdenv/tooling, and package definitions would be a good start.