Maybe I'm not understanding your question, but this is what the inputs of flakes are for.
You can pull in arbitrary code from pretty much anywhere as an input
You can pull in arbitrary code from pretty much anywhere as an input
https://ryantm.github.io/nixpkgs/languages-frameworks/maven/
nix is a build tool a similae way that docker is a build tool. You define build scripts that call the tools you already use. The major difference is that a docker file gives you no way tl be sure you can reproduce that build in the future. A flake on the other hand gives you a high degree of trust.
What we have today is that there is a multitude of dependency managers and - what's worse - all of them are _also_ build tools targeted at specific language.
Nix has a unique position because it is not language specific. Where it is lacking is missing standards and reusable libraries that would simplify common tasks.
I am comparing to Maven because I am looking for multi-platform Maven alternative. There is Bazel but its dependency management is non-existent. There is Buck2 which is great in theory but the lack of ecosystem makes it a non-starter.
Nix is the only contender in the space that offers almost everything and has a chance to become a de-facto standard of software delivery thanks to this.
What's missing though is... easy to use canned solutions similar to maven plugins.
EDIT: grammar
Nix has composable, reusable, and shareable functions. Nix is a full, be awkward, programming language. You'll find functions and flakes for nearly everything you might want to do. An example of one that is more plugin like is sops-nix.
Though have never used maven or maven plugins, I may be missing your overall point.
Want a packaged spring boot application? There is a plugin for that. Want to package it in a container image? Just add a plugin dependency. Want to build an RPM or deb package? Add another two plugin dependencies. All various artifacts are going to be uploaded to a repository and made available as dependencies.
Missing a specific plugin? You can easily implement it in Java as a module and use it inside your project (and expose it as a standalone artifact as well).
I can’t find anything similar in Nix ecosystem.
Having a language allowing for this is not the same as having solutions already available.
For example, `dockerTools` provides different functions like creating an image and other things. There is a module of fetchers, functions that retrieve source files from GitHub and other sources.
But I don't think there are many language-specific functions, like the ones you are describing. I can't think of any, except for the ones that build a Nix package from a language-specific package.
or
https://github.com/nix-community/flakelight
Their aim is to create an ecosystem of reusable Nix libraries. But it is tiny.
Writing a Maven plugin (ie. a reusable piece of configuration management logic) is easy because you can use any library from the vast Java ecosystem (just add a library as a dependency of your plugin).
Doing the same in Nix requires recreating these libraries in Nix.
Looks like Maven might simply be the right choice...
And don't get me wrong - I know it _can_ be done in Nix (as it is a programming language) - the question is _how easy_ it is to create/maintain it.
Let's say my solution requires a Java Spring Boot application, React client, custom Postgres extension and Python ML code.
- Java stuff
- node and npm
- I don't know what you would need for Postgres extensions
- Python, pip or poetry (or whatever you use for Python package management)
Here is an example flake: https://bpa.st/ZUQQ
Under `devShells`, you have `packages`. You can put there any package from nixpkgs, not just Python packages like I have there.
To make it cleaner, you could have a variable for each platform and concatenate them under packages like
`packages = javaPkgs ++ nodePkgs ++ pgPkgs ++ pyPkgs`.