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I do the same with Nix as it works for macOS builds as well It has the massive benefit of solving the lock-in problem. Your workflow is generally very short so

I do the same with Nix as it works for macOS builds as well It has the massive benefit of solving the lock-in problem. Your workflow is generally very short so it is easy to move to an alternative CI if (for example) Github were to jack up their prices for self hosted runners... That said, when using it in this way I personally love Github actions

maliker 9mo ago
I'm scared by all these references to nix in the replies here. Sounds like I'm going to have learn nix. Sounds hard.
- steeleduncan 9mo ago
  Gemini/ChatGPT help (a lot) when getting going. They make up for the poor documentation
  - theshrike79 9mo ago
    Calling nix documentation poor is an insult to actually poor documentation. Remember the old meme image about Vim and Emacs learning curves? Nix is both of those combined. It's like custom made for me on the idea level, declarative everything? Sign me up! But holy crap I have wasted so much time and messed up a few laptops completely trying to make sense of it :D
  - tfrancisl 9mo ago
    LLMs are awful at nix in my experience. Just learn the fundamentals of the language and build something with it.
wredcoll 9mo ago
Whata the killer benefit of nix over, like, a docker file or a package.lock or whatever?
- steeleduncan 9mo ago
  package.lock is JSON only, Nix is for the entire system, similar to a Dockerfile Nix specifies dependencies declaritively, and more precisely, than Docker (does by default), so the resulting environment is reproducibly the same. It caches really well and doubles as a package manager. Despite the initial learning curve, I now personally prefer Nix's declarative style to a Dockerfile
0x457 9mo ago
Nix is so nice that you can put almost your entire workflow into a check or package. Like your code-coverage report step(s) become a package that you build (I'm not brave enough to do this) I run my own jenkins for personal stuff on top of nixos, all jobs run inside devenv shell, devenv handles whatever background services required (i.e. database), /nix/store is shared between workers + attic cache in local network. Oh, and there is also nixosModule that is tested in the VM that also smoke tests the service. First build might take some time, but all future jobs run fast. The same can be done on GHA, but on github-hosted runners you can't get shared /nix/store.
dfee 9mo ago
same here. though, i think bazel is better for DAGs. i wish i could use it for my personal project (in conjunction with, and bootstrapped with nix), but that's a pretty serious tooling investment that I just feel is just going to be a rabbit hole.

maliker 9mo ago

I'm scared by all these references to nix in the replies here. Sounds like I'm going to have learn nix. Sounds hard.

steeleduncan 9mo ago
Gemini/ChatGPT help (a lot) when getting going. They make up for the poor documentation
- theshrike79 9mo ago
  Calling nix documentation poor is an insult to actually poor documentation. Remember the old meme image about Vim and Emacs learning curves? Nix is both of those combined. It's like custom made for me on the idea level, declarative everything? Sign me up! But holy crap I have wasted so much time and messed up a few laptops completely trying to make sense of it :D
- tfrancisl 9mo ago
  LLMs are awful at nix in my experience. Just learn the fundamentals of the language and build something with it.

wredcoll 9mo ago

Whata the killer benefit of nix over, like, a docker file or a package.lock or whatever?

steeleduncan 9mo ago
package.lock is JSON only, Nix is for the entire system, similar to a Dockerfile Nix specifies dependencies declaritively, and more precisely, than Docker (does by default), so the resulting environment is reproducibly the same. It caches really well and doubles as a package manager. Despite the initial learning curve, I now personally prefer Nix's declarative style to a Dockerfile

0x457 9mo ago

Nix is so nice that you can put almost your entire workflow into a check or package. Like your code-coverage report step(s) become a package that you build (I'm not brave enough to do this) I run my own jenkins for personal stuff on top of nixos, all jobs run inside devenv shell, devenv handles whatever background services required (i.e. database), /nix/store is shared between workers + attic cache in local network. Oh, and there is also nixosModule that is tested in the VM that also smoke tests the service. First build might take some time, but all future jobs run fast. The same can be done on GHA, but on github-hosted runners you can't get shared /nix/store.

dfee 9mo ago

same here. though, i think bazel is better for DAGs. i wish i could use it for my personal project (in conjunction with, and bootstrapped with nix), but that's a pretty serious tooling investment that I just feel is just going to be a rabbit hole.