6 ms·

Haskell folks seem to be gravitating towards the Nix package manager, which is general-purpose. We need to stop the proliferation of a package manager per prog

Haskell folks seem to be gravitating towards the Nix package manager, which is general-purpose. We need to stop the proliferation of a package manager per programming language and make systems package managers capable of handling the use-cases of pip, bundler, npm, cabal, etc. Nix and Guix are the only 2 general-purpose package managers that I know of that can do it.

tel 12y ago
I don't think it's gravitating "toward" Nix. Many members of the community are trying to use Nix personally and maybe Cabal proposals are inspired by Nix. I don't think the idea today would be that the entire community should move to Nix, however, not by a long shot.
pjmlp 12y ago
> Nix and Guix are the only 2 general-purpose package managers that I know of that can do it. For anyone constrained to GNU/Linux, right?
- davexunit 12y ago
  > For anyone constrained to GNU/Linux, right? I don't feel constrained by a free software operating system. Besides that, a bunch of people use Nix on OS X. On Windows I suppose you're stuck with the inferior package managers.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    "I don't feel constrained by a free software operating system." I appreciate the sentiment, but there's a substantial difference between "constrained to" and "constrained by".
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    There are many other OS out there. Why do people only think of the triad?
- masklinn 12y ago
  Nix works on OSX (although the packages themselves may not)
deleted 12y ago
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freyrs3 12y ago
Wouldn't say that the community is gravitating toward Nix, it's kind of a false split since Cabal and Nix can only be used together and Nix can't replace cabal. Though Nix can be used to manage a wider package environment than cabal-install can and then cabal is left to the role of a Haskell build system which it excels at.
- davexunit 12y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. I'm not a Haskell programmer so I was basing my observation off of some Haskell hackers blog entries.

tel 12y ago

I don't think it's gravitating "toward" Nix. Many members of the community are trying to use Nix personally and maybe Cabal proposals are inspired by Nix. I don't think the idea today would be that the entire community should move to Nix, however, not by a long shot.

pjmlp 12y ago

> Nix and Guix are the only 2 general-purpose package managers that I know of that can do it. For anyone constrained to GNU/Linux, right?

davexunit 12y ago
> For anyone constrained to GNU/Linux, right? I don't feel constrained by a free software operating system. Besides that, a bunch of people use Nix on OS X. On Windows I suppose you're stuck with the inferior package managers.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  "I don't feel constrained by a free software operating system." I appreciate the sentiment, but there's a substantial difference between "constrained to" and "constrained by".
- pjmlp 12y ago
  There are many other OS out there. Why do people only think of the triad?
masklinn 12y ago
Nix works on OSX (although the packages themselves may not)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

freyrs3 12y ago

Wouldn't say that the community is gravitating toward Nix, it's kind of a false split since Cabal and Nix can only be used together and Nix can't replace cabal. Though Nix can be used to manage a wider package environment than cabal-install can and then cabal is left to the role of a Haskell build system which it excels at.

davexunit 12y ago
Thanks for the explanation. I'm not a Haskell programmer so I was basing my observation off of some Haskell hackers blog entries.