YAML doesn't have conditionals. YAML doesn't have logic. You can't abstract out common patterns in YAML itself. The beauty of Nix is that mostly looks like a

YAML doesn't have conditionals. YAML doesn't have logic. You can't abstract out common patterns in YAML itself. The beauty of Nix is that mostly looks like a key-value declarative language, but it has facilities for abstracting, iterating and evaluating conditionally. Also IMO it's not that ugly. It sure beats JSON on aesthetics.