| > To learn Nix you need to learn both how to write shell scripts and how to write Nix expressions. How is that better than just learning Scheme, which is very trivial to learn the basics - and for most packages, you don't really need to learn much because you can reference other packages - it's really just like a configuration file. Except that as a Linux admin, you probably already know how to write shell scripts anyway, and you'd be rather hard-pressed to manage a Linux system while never once having to write or read one. There's also a lot more information on writing shell scripts than Guile scripts for various common purposes. > scheme is the only language you'll need to be able to fully drive your OS. With a different DSL for each use, meaning you have to learn the restrictions of each DSL anyway. > You can do anything from the shell too (which nixpkg can invoke) - you can even invoke guile from a shell script. That's true, although in Nix's case, the derivations map directly to the source, as Nix code itself can't call out to anything (only return derivations which might) - and in theory, the build could then happen in a sandbox, making it even more likely that the result would be the same. We might not have reproducible builds yet, but Nix is closer to having them than Guix if somebody wanted to make a research project out of it. |