Purely Functional Linux with NixOS [video]

It's very cool what Nix has managed to accomplish. Unfortunately, after studying it I've started to think the solution is overwrought and might be more trouble than the problem is solves, or as I like to say, "with solutions like that who needs problems?"

I think it boils down to these points from the summary:

> Thus the same package can coexist on the system with multiple configurations.

That we have to worry about multiple static compilations of a package hits a deeper problem that Nix can't fix. Namely that there really shouldn't be any need for static install configurations. So the only static differentiation that should be necessary is version.

> The derivation is a string in key-value format which will ultimately be hashed and which can refer to objects in the Nix store

So why create a whole new "expression" language just to generate these? Developers work with key-value formats all the time (e.g. YAML, JSON). The whole functional language thing seems almost like a slight of hand when you realize this is the end result.