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Comment by 331c8c71 | Hacker News Reader

> would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet

The daemon needs to be run as root root in a standard multi-user install which rules out HPC-like envs where Nix would actually shine. There are workarounds but none of them official.

Tooling and documentation are on the same level as for a random esoteric programming language. I love Nix but have been hesitant so far to push it at work despite immense productivity gains.

Similarly to HPC, Nix looks like a perfect match for CI/CD pipelines on the surface. In reality the only easy way to get it done is to use additional non-foss software [1].

[1]: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/recommendations-for-introducin...

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> The daemon needs to be run as root root in a standard multi-user install which rules out HPC-like envs where Nix would actually shine.

That's an important issue! For those who haven't seen the recent work on it, check it out below.

Théophane Huffschmitt is working on it here: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/5380

and here: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/5226

tracking issue: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/5208

NixCon 2022 talk: https://youtu.be/Gw3LtgbKouc

> There are workarounds but none of them official.

But does it need to be official? Wouldn't that at the same time bloat nix even more? Isn't it enough if core people of the community for example build https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot ?

> In reality the only easy way to get it done is to use additional non-foss software

That is not true at all. You can use a nix docker image, a 5 line nix file and 2 commands to do a very basic CI pipeline almost anywhere.

> But does it need to be official?

When looking at the up-front time investment and long-term effects, it’s (counterintuitively) crucial that it be official.

If you’re lucky unofficial things eventually end up being official and work fine, but much more often unofficial things die on the vine. If you’re really unlucky the whole branch rots and the system you built on that branch ends up isolated on the ground.

Apologies for stretching the metaphor, it’s been a long day.

> You can use a nix docker image, a 5 line nix file and 2 commands to do a very basic CI pipeline almost anywhere.

Yes, if you don't cache the build results or manage that cache very crudely. Sorry, I wasn't precise enough.

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