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by cmm 1106 days ago
And let me make some further general observations here, while I'm unfortunately procrastinating.

People use software to solve their problems. The way you "sell" (in whatever sense) software to people is by showing them which of their problems it solves (they don't even have to be explicitly aware they have those problems in the first place, BTW) and how.

Nix(OS) is adopted first and foremost because it clearly solves some pressing problems. It allows you to have many development environments that don't stomp on each other, without managing a zoo of containers or VMs. It allows you to specify the operating system (or even just the user environment) you use, over as many machines as you need, deterministically and while ensuring that once you solve a problem it stays solved.

Those are real pain points, and since Nix solves them it would be used by people regardless of those people feel about Nix-the-language, because language appreciation is not the main reason people use it -- pain is.

Some goes for Guix, obviously.

So if your goal (whatever your motivation may be) is to explain to a Nix user how Guix is better, you need to point out something that is relevant to the person you are "selling" to and is fundamentally painful with Nix and painless with Guix. And, well, reaching first thing for "Guile is the official extension language of the GNU Project" does not do your marketing effort any favors.

1 comments

> So if your goal (whatever your motivation may be) is to explain to a Nix user how Guix is better

I never said that that is my goal