aqua VS devbox

Instead I use https://github.com/aquaproj/aqua.

In this post, I describe the update of aqua in 2022.

Aqua is a packaging tool that I'm testing out. Very interesting conceptually, and if you like chezmoi (I use it, too), then I think you'll find it worth a peek.

$ aqua init $ aqua g -i mitchellh/gox $ cat aqua.yaml --- # aqua - Declarative CLI Version Manager # https://aquaproj.github.io/ registries: - type: standard ref: v2.19.0 # renovate: depName=aquaproj/aqua-registry packages: - name: mitchellh/[email protected] $ aqua i INFO[0000] create a symbolic link aqua_version=1.9.0 env=darwin/arm64 link_file=/Users/shunsukesuzuki/.local/share/aquaproj-aqua/bin/gox new=aqua-proxy package_name=mitchellh/gox package_version=v1.0.1 program=aqua registry=standard registry_ref=v2.19.0 INFO[0000] download and unarchive the package aqua_version=1.9.0 env=darwin/arm64 package_name=mitchellh/gox package_version=v1.0.1 program=aqua registry=standard registry_ref=v2.19.0 INFO[0000] building Go tool aqua_version=1.9.0 env=darwin/arm64 exe_path=/Users/shunsukesuzuki/.local/share/aquaproj-aqua/pkgs/go/github.com/mitchellh/gox/v1.0.1/bin/gox file_name=gox go_build_dir=/Users/shunsukesuzuki/.local/share/aquaproj-aqua/pkgs/go/github.com/mitchellh/gox/v1.0.1/src/gox-1.0.1 go_src=. package_name=mitchellh/gox package_version=v1.0.1 program=aqua registry=standard registry_ref=v2.19.0 go: downloading github.com/hashicorp/go-version v1.0.0 go: downloading github.com/mitchellh/iochan v1.0.0

For the version control, we recommend aqua.

Before I went on my Christmas vacation last year I wrote an article on how I use Nix in my Elm projects. At the time, I was pleased with my set up. However, not even a month would go by before my satisfaction was questioned. In early January, Carlo Ascani asked a question, on the Elm Discourse, about his Umbra project. I decided to explore his project and I soon discovered two files, devbox.json and devbox.lock, I had never seen before. This piqued my curiosity and I had to learn more. I followed the link to the Devbox website and feverishly read the docs. I... was... hooked. I was pleasantly surprised by its simplicity and it seemed to fit my use cases really well.

How does Flox compare to Devbox? https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox

I've spent the last year managing all my packages with Devbox (https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox).

Local dev, cloud dev, CI, production – all with the same config file. Fingers crossed my talk submission for PackagingCon gets accepted. It'd be awesome to share this new way of working with a wider audience.

> Now to figure out what a "flake" is…

Flake is a worthwhile addition to Nix that is worth learning. But like anything Nixian, it's not straightforward.

Have you checked out any of the tools that aim to simplify Nix experience? We built Devbox (https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox) with this in mind.

Also devbox ( https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox ) which is what this is for does not work on windows because of its Nix dependency.

For these reasons, I believe most developer environments should prioritize developer experience over fidelity. Tools like Containerized development environments and cloud emulators can strike the right balance and there’s no surprise that we see increased activity around devcontainers, and similar solutions.

Local first, cloud optional is the only way (IMHO) we're going to get people off their local laptop development setups.

We need to support local dev environments first, with the exact same config a developer can then move to the cloud.

See https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox for how this can be achieved and https://www.mikenikles.com/blog/dev-environments-in-the-clou... for my thoughts after 3 years of working in this space.

If you like the properties of Nix, but find it confusing, you should check out Devbox! It simplifies the process of creating Nix-powered dev environments:

https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox

As part of the work we've been doing with [devbox](https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox), we needed a unit testing framework to test some of our nix code. Unfortunately we had some use cases where we did *not* want to introduce a dependency on `nixpkgs` (and therefore we couldn't use `runTests`).