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Nix delights users |
Even though the 'Nix scares newcomers off' thing comes up every once in a while, when such users actually use an application based on Nix (i.e., not directly intending to use Nix, but using it only out of necessity), they tend to be delightfully surprised that things 'just work' (exceeding their expectations), compared to other mechanisms they are used to.
Thomas Honeyman corroborates it:
I’ve had a similar experience with folks hacking on a library of mine which provisions tooling via Nix.
Technically they’re using Nix, but more as consumers than actively using it
jaygray0919 on installing neuron via Nix:
I have never seen a build of this size, with so many dependencies, work so smoothly - frickin' incredible.
ceedubs on the Haskell development environment facilitated by Nix:
I do think that Nix has a very high barrier and will deter many potential users (though homebrew might be more of a solution to that than Stack). However, I wanted to let you know that as someone who does use Nix and doesn't use Haskell, contributing to this project was delightfully smooth. I was able to follow the instructions in the README to drop into a nix-shell (directly or via one of the bin/ scripts) with the necessary environment, and compiling and running tests automatically watched for source changes. If I start doing more Haskell development I'll want to figure out how to set up a proper language server, but Vim on top of the great Nix setup that you have here worked surprisingly well!
alskipp on the Haskell Nix development workflow:
it was super easy to build and test.
jaygray0919 on upgrading neuron via Nix:
another flawless install! watching a neuron install is a lesson in software distribution; i've never seen anything like it. from one perspective: 'jeez there are a lot of dependencies.' from another perspective: 'jeez, i could never build anything with so many dependencies - it would overwhelm my mental model of an application.'