[callahad]

I think it's worth jumping in. Fifteen years ago, it wasn't clear whether Git, Mercurial, or Bazaar would win, but it was evident that something fundamental had forever changed in revision control systems.

Nix feels similar, but for build systems, package management, and configuration management all at once.

[dietr1ch]

Right, I don't know if nix will manage to evolve, or a new implementation will come up, but the box with the wonders of nix has been already open and there's no way people will want to go back to mutable and non-deterministic systems.