devenv VS enso

Sounds like nix using devenv[1] also would solve this problem.

https://devenv.sh/

It works on MacOS/Windows, unlike systemd. Therefore it's well suited for development environment setups for polyglot teams.

https://devenv.sh/ is one example that uses it to do just that.

I gave devenv multiple tries, and I am sorry to say there are multiple annoying issues that forced me to give up every time.

Some of these 200+ issues are unsolved for a fairly long time.

https://github.com/cachix/devenv/issues

Software developers often want to customize:

1. their home environments: for packages (some reach for brew on MacOS) and configurations (dotfiles, and some reach for stow).

2. their development shells: for build dependencies (compilers, SDKs, libraries), tools (LSP, linters, formatters, debuggers), and services (runtime, database). Some reach for devcontainers here.

3. or even their operating systems: for development, for CI, for deployment, or for personal use.

Nix provision all of the above in the same language, with Nixpkgs, NixOS, home-manager, and devShells such as https://devenv.sh/. What's more, Nix is (https://nixos.org/):

- reproducible: what works on your dev machine also works in CI in prod,

- declarative: you version control and review your configurations and infrastructure as code, at a reasonable level of abstraction,

- reliable: all changes are atomic with easy roll back.

https://devenv.sh/ and nix in general are great for setting up dev environments.

> but worried that the development is not moving forward

There is an open v1.0 PR: https://github.com/cachix/devenv/pull/1005

2) A way to run services apps depend on (databases, job runners, cache etc).

I am going to suggest one of the Nix based tools that do those things:

  - https://devenv.sh/ (I use this at work)

Yup, I haven’t tried it but there is https://devenv.sh which is built on top of nix and makes it simple.

Although Guix reads better than Nix (after all, it's Lisp), I found the support and resources available for learning severely lacking.

Plus, you have to jump through hoops to install non-free software, which goes against the ethos of Guix anyway.

IMHO, Nix is clearly "the winner" here and we'll see more and more adoption as it improves. Lots of folks are doing exciting work (see https://determinate.systems/, https://devenv.sh/, https://flakehub.com/). And the scale and organization around nixpkgs is damn impressive.

> At least I have yet to see one that is actually useful in the sense of a generic (or even a single-purpose-built) language

Yeah as said, https://github.com/enso-org/enso seems to be a general purpose functional programming language with visual editor, but otherwise I haven't really seen any no-code solutions worth their salt. I'm not particularly a fan of enso either, but it's the best I've seen.

Although it's not quite the same, I do like what Enso[0] is bringing to the table, especially the 1:1 visual node/language interop. Whether this is generalisable to a fully decoupled interface remains to be seen, but there's definitely potential.

[0]: https://enso.org/

I think Enso is already taken by a YC company [0]. Could get confusing.

[0] https://enso.org

COMPANY: Enso Inc. TYPE: Full time LOCATION: Europe and United States of America – fully distributed company REMOTE: Only remote VISA: No VISA required DESCRIPTION: Hi, we are Enso (enso.org, Y Combinator S21)! We are looking for an amazing Cloud engineer to join our core team. We are a remote first company, working in Europe and the USA.

Friends of mine are developing Enso (https://enso.org/), an interactive programming language with dual visual and textual representations.

Even well before Bret Victor's time, there were tools for visual programming. I have been using LabView to maintain data processing in an optical laboratory.

> I'm convinced this entire space should be visual.

At my last 2 jobs I spent entirely too much time debugging Matillion jobs, which are visual. I have my doubts that it’s the panacea that it appears to be.

That said, you may find Enso particularly interesting: https://github.com/enso-org/enso