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Comment by chrissoundz | Hacker News Reader

Where does it say you shouldn't use nix-env, niv or shell.nix in 2023? I would argue that there is extensive documentation and functionality for that already and it's not like it's getting deprecated. I've used Nix/Nixos for the past 4 years and still haven't looked into flakes - all the Nix stuff I use works great so I just can't really be bothered to spend time learning more, though I don't doubt it has some advantages.

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I've been using Nix for about a decade, and not bothered with flakes yet. However, I also avoid nix-env and channels, as the parent suggests:

- Instead of channels, I use fetchGit with pinned revisions

- Instead of managing installed software via nix-env, I use buildEnv to collect everything I need in a single derivation. If I'm on NixOS I'll put that in systemPackages; or otherwise (e.g. on macOS) I'll use nix-env to only install that one package.

These have the advantage of being declarative files, which can be tracked in git; rather than imperative commands.

> Where does it say you shouldn't use nix-env, niv or shell.nix in 2023?

It's not in official documentation but the biggest reason is it's not reproducible by default and a new user could easily not pin nixpkgs, then think "wait... Nix isn't reproducible".

nix-shell and niv or otherwise pinning nixpkgs is pretty good, though there are some reproducibility advantages flakes has over nix-shell + niv such as:

- not allowing access to files not tracked in the git repo - forcing the user to lock their inputs with flake.lock whereas pinning/niv are optional

Also see: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes#Making_your_evaluations_pure

Meanwhile, much of the Nix world is using the composable and standardized system of Flakes so they can easily share their derivations. Flakes are behind a flag, but are a part of `nix` and all of these other tools are adding dependencies and complexity to your system. The Nix Flake shells also start up much quicker. It's really worth a look because it can simplify your setup and make it easier for others to read your Nix code and not run into something unexpected or nonstandard.

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