Hmm I don't know Nix very well. But the features described in the blog post. Aren't they very similar to the features of docker ? And docker doesn't hat all of these "paper cuts".
How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
101–110 of 183 posts
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because industry makes good decisions? Decisions like adopting python, dooming a large part of the world software to be bug ridden slow messes. Or to elevate CUDA to the facto machine learning backend? Besides it's not clear that Haskell isn't adopted by industry due to the syntax.
> Because industry makes good decisions? That's irrelevant - if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want. It's been clear for at least a decade now that programmers don't want Haskell syntax. Whether it's a good syntax or not is irrelevant.
Why do you think it's Haskells syntax that is the problem? The syntax is not so weird. I'd say the semantics are the hangup. 100% purity and lazy evaluation are a much harder pill to swallow then the syntax.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Using Haskell as a base for the syntax I don’t really think this is a problem at all? I mean, at the particular design point the language occupies there are basically three possibilities: - Kind of like Lisp (parens everywhere, painful with pervasive currying); - Kind of like ML (var and fun everywhere); - Kind of like Haskell. Nix is chooses the last of those, and it does not have most of Haskell’s funkiness: no “…
>> Using Haskell as a base for the syntax > I don’t really think this is a problem at all? Of course it's a problem. You shouldn't use a syntax that has been soundly rejected by the industry.
> soundly rejected by the industry
That same industry which embraced PHP and JavaScript? Is that an authority, on what?
Also, the industry hasn't rejected Haskell, it has just been learning from it very slowly. My prediction is this trend will consistently continue at the same glacial speed.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Using Haskell as a base for the syntax > I don’t really think this is a problem at all? Of course it's a problem. You shouldn't use a syntax that has been soundly rejected by the industry.
OK, fair enough, not an—independent? terminal?—problem: the syntax is largely forced upon us by the semantics, it’s not a Common Lisp vs Dylan or a Python vs Lua vs Ruby thing; and the semantics is the crux of the implementation approach (though not of the packaging organization being implemented). If you want to argue against the semantics, by all means, but “industry doesn’t think it looks pretty” does not cut it,…
> If you want to argue against the semantics, by all means, but “industry doesn’t think it looks pretty” does not cut it
I'm not arguing against semantics, and "the industry doesn't think it looks pretty" is not my argument either.
My argument is that, if you want the industry to accept something, it needs to be acceptable to the industry. Haskell-ish syntax[1] has clearly been unacceptable to the industry for a long time.
It's been rejected, again and again. At this point, it is pretty much guaranteed that attaching Haskell syntax to your new config format/language/application/whatever is a recipe for failure.
It's not that the industry just thinks it looks ugly, it's that the industry has outright rejected how it looks.
> even “I don’t think it looks pretty” would afford more respect on my part
My opinion on Haskell syntax, and whether or not you respect my opinion, is also pretty much irrelevant if the industry has already rejected it. I could be thinking that it's the best thing since sliced Jesus, but that won't change the fact that the syntax of Haskell has been rejected by the industry.
[1] Amongst others.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#105My two greatest gripes with nix (or rather nixpkgs) are:
- so much things are implicit
- inversion of control on steroids
Besides, I love NixOS.
EDIT to elaborate: when you try to read how various things are packaged, it's hard to know where certain things come from (`with` statement isn't helping); you wonder, how on earth can it work when it's mostly empty; names of some functions don't appear in files they're defined.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, fair enough, not an—independent? terminal?—problem: the syntax is largely forced upon us by the semantics, it’s not a Common Lisp vs Dylan or a Python vs Lua vs Ruby thing; and the semantics is the crux of the implementation approach (though not of the packaging organization being implemented). If you want to argue against the semantics, by all means, but “industry doesn’t think it looks pretty” does not cut it,…
> If you want to argue against the semantics, by all means, but “industry doesn’t think it looks pretty” does not cut it I'm not arguing against semantics, and "the industry doesn't think it looks pretty" is not my argument either. My argument is that, if you want the industry to accept something, it needs to be acceptable to the industry. Haskell-ish syntax[1] has clearly been unacceptable to the industry for a long…
>has clearly been unacceptable to the industry for a long time.
What?? Galois, Facebook, IBM, Twitter, AT&T, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, NVIDIA, Microsoft and GitHub use Haskell.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because industry makes good decisions? Decisions like adopting python, dooming a large part of the world software to be bug ridden slow messes. Or to elevate CUDA to the facto machine learning backend? Besides it's not clear that Haskell isn't adopted by industry due to the syntax.
> Because industry makes good decisions? That's irrelevant - if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want. It's been clear for at least a decade now that programmers don't want Haskell syntax. Whether it's a good syntax or not is irrelevant.
>if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want
Before the iPhone no one knew they wanted a good camera and "apps" on their phone.
See the important point here -> "knew they wanted"
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to argue against the semantics, by all means, but “industry doesn’t think it looks pretty” does not cut it I'm not arguing against semantics, and "the industry doesn't think it looks pretty" is not my argument either. My argument is that, if you want the industry to accept something, it needs to be acceptable to the industry. Haskell-ish syntax[1] has clearly been unacceptable to the industry for a long…
>has clearly been unacceptable to the industry for a long time. What?? Galois, Facebook, IBM, Twitter, AT&T, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, NVIDIA, Microsoft and GitHub use Haskell. https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry
> What?? Galois, Facebook, IBM, Twitter, AT&T, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, NVIDIA, Microsoft and GitHub use Haskell.
So? The usage of Haskell within the entire industry is so small it's not even a rounding error.
It's hard to make the argument that the industry has accepted it when the industry usage is too tiny to even measure properly.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because industry makes good decisions? That's irrelevant - if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want. It's been clear for at least a decade now that programmers don't want Haskell syntax. Whether it's a good syntax or not is irrelevant.
>if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want Before the iPhone no one knew they wanted a good camera and "apps" on their phone. See the important point here -> "knew they wanted"
> >if you want uptake, you need to support what user's want
> Before the iPhone no one knew they wanted a good camera and "apps" on their phone.
> See the important point here -> "knew they wanted"
Haskell has been around now for something like 25 years. You'd have a point if the iPhone was unpopular for 25 years before users finally decided to like it.
It wasn't. Users saw the iPhone and wanted it the minute they saw it. Programmers have been looking at Haskell for 25 years and rejecting it.
Re: How Nix and NixOS get so close to perfect
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Using Haskell as a base for the syntax > I don’t really think this is a problem at all? Of course it's a problem. You shouldn't use a syntax that has been soundly rejected by the industry.
> soundly rejected by the industry That same industry which embraced PHP and JavaScript? Is that an authority, on what? Also, the industry hasn't rejected Haskell, it has just been learning from it very slowly. My prediction is this trend will consistently continue at the same glacial speed.
> That same industry which embraced PHP and JavaScript? Is that an authority, on what?
It's a reflection of what the programmers want. Apparently they wanted syntax with braces and semicolons.
Someone else pointed out elsethread that maybe it's not the syntax, but the semantics, that is being rejected here.