Nix derivation and nix store managed artifacts is a superior model to many language specific package managers (though the learning curve is non-trivial), we use it with Haskell extensively, for instance.
I can't wait for someone to write a great book on Nix. I was so lost in it. I had it running on my home server, and needing to compile my own things because of what Nixpkgs lacked was a constant struggle.
It was a very frustrating experience. A frustration which was led by the fact that i could tell how powerful Nixos was - if only i could grok it.
Yeah a book on nixos would be valuable I think. Understanding nixos really comes down to reading all the docs then trying to accomplish what you need to do, learning by doing and reading source code.
I love nix, my biggest gripe would be that the Nix language is dynamically typed...
It was a very frustrating experience. A frustration which was led by the fact that i could tell how powerful Nixos was - if only i could grok it.