Hacker News Reader

Comment by gigatexal | Hacker News Reader

I want to like NixOS I just hate the language — idk maybe I’m in the minority. Give me a functional language like F# or some better DSL that builds a DAG and then you’re golden.

View on HN

The language and the compiler infrastructure is for me the biggest problem. It's very hard to understand what is going wrong when it goes wrong. Most advice feel like copy pasting existing code without knowing what it does.

Learning this also complicates things as I am feeling overwhelmed with all the things needed for simple configuration structures instead of starting out with a simple program.

The language is bad but the module system is even worse. It’s another language implemented in the nix language. Zero hopes of an LSP or any kind of editor assistance. God have mercy on your soul if the docs for your piece of work are lacking.

Not a controversial opinion even in the nix community as far as I know.

I think a lot of people including myself feel this way.

I really like the Nix model of derivations and approach to deterministic builds. It's the language IMO that prevents it from getting mainstream adoption.

I think they would be best served by picking a subset of an FP language that already has good ergonomics and tooling.

it's the biggest painpoint. I got used to it, but still don't like it that much. I think there are some efforts to build some kind of VM so, in theory, you could put any language on top.

https://snix.dev/

Have you looked at Guix?

Yes I have. And it looks sane. The language is a kind of lisp? Scheme? It’s what I’d use if I went this route.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com