[rgoulter]

I don't think tasks which are basic for other package managers require dozens and dozens of hours sunk into nix to learn.

"Niche subgroup" is about right in its current state. With text editors, VSCode is powerful and accessible to use, but there are power users who prefer to spend time learning Emacs.

With package managers, nix is a power tool. It's not as accessible as it could be. But, the idea of "spend time learning a tool" isn't unusual in software development.

[pdimitar]

Spending time to learn a tool is a standard requirement in our profession. Nobody but the laziest ones has a problem with it.

Programs like Nix, Emacs, VIM, Git -- they require a lot of time sunk into them to sometimes get even to basic productivity.

The latter is not okay. While I think it's unavoidable for Emacs and VIM, I've seen enough Nix and Git recipes and confusing command line aliases to conclude that Nix (and Git) can be much more friendly and have a smoother learning curve.

The ugly truth is that its community is not interested in that and even looks down on busy programmers who want to memorize a few shorthands and move on, which is a very valid mindset to have and I'm not okay with people looking down on it.

To me it looks like Nix is firmly headed in the direction of a yet another tool with a very good idea whose authors don't want to make it more usable and thus it remained a niche curiosity for people with too much free time... and the occasional corporate programming team that's perfectly served by its niche benefits.

I'd hate for Nix to become that. But at the moment everything points at this being its fate.

[rgoulter]

> To me it looks like Nix is firmly headed in the direction of a yet another tool with a very good idea whose authors don't want to make it more usable and thus it remained a niche curiosity for people with too much free time.

What gives you the indication things are headed in the wrong way?

I think things are heading in the right direction.

The last year has seen nix flakes release to the stable nix version. Flakes are a big UX improvement to Nix.

The last few releases of nix have added improved support for debugging nix code. (Poor debugging UX was highlighted as a major pain point).

Efforts from major contributors are acknowledging the importance of improving documentation. - From the latest community survey, the steep learning curve and poor onboarding experience was noted as a major pain point. etc.

> even looks down on busy programmers who want to memorize a few shorthands and move on

Ehhh.

I don't think it's fair to say "vim is a bad tool because it requires learning to get used to it". -- Fortunately, developers aren't stuck between nano and vi, they've got highly accessible tools like VSCode.. or on the command line, even micro https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

[pdimitar]

> What gives you the indication things are headed in the wrong way?

Because it started swinging in the direction of "you are not the target audience" while at the same time raving about how it's the solution to the software packaging and distribution problems -- which, pardon if mistaken, are very ambitious and big goals that affect VERY different groups of people.

Telling any of them "it's not made for you" is not doing their cause any favors.

One example: documentation and onboarding. A good amount of guides, both official and out there, still use the old-ish syntax while `nix <subcommand>` has been a thing for a while now.

...Also "flakes", "pills", really? Can we finally grow up and start using proper terminology? The cutesy jargon must go. Forever. This is not a kids game and not a hobby project anymore. You're writing software with extremely ambitious goals. Show some professionalism. I can close my eyes on that and have done so many times but I've personally known a good amount of engineering leaders that would deny usage of software on that basis alone.

Nix got to a part of its lifetime where marketing and onboarding have to be heavily prioritized and its community doesn't seem very keen on it. That dooms it to obscurity from where I am standing because I am one of those programmers that visit the website and are like: "What is this? Oh, that. How do we start? Like so? Cool. Oh... an error on the second command, seriously? OK, OK, let's just Google it -- huh, nothing. Yeah, frak that, bye".

The above has to be mercilessly chased and resolved at every occasion, aggressively. If not, Nix is going to be the next Snap / Flatpak.

And I really want to make it super clear if you're still with me: I want Nix to succeed. For now though I view it as a nascent tool that still has long ways to go. And I really wish they started learning from the mistakes of Git (confusing CLI, big docs that don't help one get onboarded quickly). But so far it's not looking good on these points.

Admittedly I last checked it out 7-ish months ago. I'll try checking it out every 3 months or so from now on. And I hope I am wrong.

[rgoulter]

> Nix got to a part of its lifetime where marketing and onboarding have to be heavily prioritized and its community doesn't seem very keen on it.

As far as I can tell, Nix is growing pretty well. The results from the last community survey indicated that most of the users started using it within the last few years.

> And I really want to make it super clear if you're still with me: I want Nix to succeed. For now though I view it as a nascent tool that still has long ways to go.

Perhaps by analogy: if apt-get is like notepad, and nix is like emacs/vim, it'd be neat for something like VSCode.

I think rough edges like "nix isn't nice to use for <some common programming language>", etc. would be good to sort out. -- But, yeah, that the documentation is rough, and the onboarding is harsh, were some of the big pain points identified in the community survey.

> Telling any of them "it's not made for you" is not doing their cause any favors.

Not every tool is well suited to all users.

I wouldn't recommend Arch or Gentoo linux distributions to someone who doesn't want to spend time tinkering, or spending time figuring out why something broke. I'd recommend Debian instead.

I wouldn't recommend Rust to a team which can't afford the time to train developers. Whereas, Go is a much simpler language that's easier to pick up.

In its current state, Nix isn't well suited to "I just want things to work, I'm not interested in a package manager more involved than apt-get".

[pdimitar]

> As far as I can tell, Nix is growing pretty well. The results from the last community survey indicated that most of the users started using it within the last few years.

Taking a single sample from recently is just coming across as fanboying and wishing for your desired conclusion to be true. Let's not go in that territory, it's not arguing in good faith.

One of my favorite technologies was "trending" for a bit but then plateau-ed. These things happen. Factors vary but usually fall within a narrow set that's well-known by the "realist" type of people. Many don't like hearing that however, hence endless bikeshedding ensues. No need for that here.

> Perhaps by analogy: if apt-get is like notepad, and nix is like emacs/vim, it'd be neat for something like VSCode.

And that's exactly what my point is. Nix is nothing like VScode for package management. It's more like an ancient version of VIM whose advocates swear that the months and years needed to learn it well will pay off to eternity. Sorry, I don't mean to bash you or anybody else but I've read forums and GitHub issues. Nix's community demeanor leaves things to be desired.

> Not every tool is well suited to all users.

If you want to "solve" package management, reproducibility et. al. then you should try to cater to all users.

I'll remind you that I really want for Nix to succeed. I hate it how one update command can change files in /etc, /var, /usr and /home. I want isolation! I want trackability! I want to issue a system-wide update command and then check logs for each package updated and which files did it touch exactly. I want that put in a time-travelling database (a la ZFS snapshots) and be able to revert whenever I wish.

These things are hugely important and extremely critical for the future.

In this context just throwing your hands in the air and saying "it's not for everyone" is just not being ambitious enough. I and many others want a replacement for e.g. pacman and apt-get. A complete, 100% replacement, that does everything better.

So far Nix is not that. Until it started closing in on that target then it will remain niche technology for fans.

Obviously so far my vision is not aligning with that of the maintainers. I get that. But I also have plenty of experience and am well within my right to use it to try and predict what traction will their tool get if they do (or don't) certain things.