Picture of Skinner from “The Simpsons” with the linux logo on his face and the word “Pathetic” in the bottom center of the picture.
Picture of Skinner from “The Simpsons” with the linux logo on his face and the word “Pathetic” in the bottom center of the picture.
I still don’t completely get their point, TBH.
And the Nix language seems to be intentionally confusingly close to json.
The similarities are superficial at best. The only thing similar is that it uses braces for attribute sets (objects) and square brackets for lists. And I guess quotes for strings.
But otherwise it’s a full (functional) programming language, with functions, variable bindings, etc.
Flakes aren’t perfect, but they are really good for ensuring that you have completely reproducible builds since the version used for every dependency is pinned.
control the versions of the repo and packages
config the official repo (allow unfree packages for example) that doesn’t work unless you’re on nixos
add packages from a git repo
update package definitions (think
apt update
)iirc theyre meant to improve reproducibility by using pinned versions of stuff like nixpkgs instead of inheriting from your system which could be a problem if for example someone on 23.11 sends a deriv to someone on 24.05