reflex VS nix

There's other people around here who would like to know your opinion about these GUI frameworks! I haven't written a GUI in Rust personally, but my favorite GUI framework is not at all OOP: https://reflex-frp.org/

Not to be confused with Reflex, allowing web apps in pure Haskell: https://reflex-frp.org/

FRP solutions sound very attractive. But reflex seems to be stuck on the outdated GHCJS, and I haven't been able to get it to build. The newer JS output in GHC doesn't yet have DOM support. And even if I used one of those, figuring out how to interact with a LaTeX renderer might be tricky.

I only have experience using Reflex, which I regard as the main contender for FRP UI libraries in the Haskell sphere. It's got a flashy website, but I think the documentation is a bit disorganized -- it took a long time for me to figure out how to get going with the library (you find some pieces of knowledge scattered here and there, if you look hard enough). My plan was to learn it well enough to onboard other people, but I don't think I could convince anyone who hasn't already decided that they're gonna make UIs in Haskell no matter the required effort.

Once someone has spent a bunch of time with Haskell and sees the value, they will find Nix if it makes sense. Maybe they'll want to play with https://reflex-frp.org, or they'll discover they want a better way to package 3rd-party dependencies, or they start using NixOS and want to nix all the things, etc. etc. Or, maybe they'll never find a use for it, and that's okay.

Reflex natively supports iOS, along with Android, desktop and web. I would recommend it for functional reactive programming in Haskell: https://reflex-frp.org

It's been awhile since I've tried to get into Ubuntu Touch/Linux mobile development in earnest. I'm currently working on an app using the reflex framework that I hope to eventually target Android, iOS, Desktop, and Linux Mobile.

If you're talking about the current Elm approach, I'm not sure. Otherwise, the paper I linked to notes some of the FRP libraries that existed at the time, some of which are still supported today (like reactive-banana), and otherwise I'd suggest looking at reflex, mentioned in the first post in this thread. I don't think it existed at the time the Elm paper came out.

> https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/9911#issuecomment-19252073...

As we covered in my last post, NixOS is a amazing Linux distribution for creating stable and declared environments. Now while this is amazing for a desktop setup, it is also perfect for a home-server or home-lab.

(Nix itself is slowly chugging along with Windows via MinGW - https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-on-windows/1113/108 and https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/1320 , for example.)

Nix is a cross-platform package manager. It uses the nix programming language. Nix and NixOs are often used in the same context, but while the first is a package manager, the latter is a linux distribution based on nix.

Today I want to talk to you about Nixos. What is it? Nixos is a declarative and reproducible OS, partly taking the words used on their own page. What does that mean?

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.

Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix.

- it reduces bloat, because you can generate an environment or OS image with only the software needed to run a specific program or service

My guess is that a big efficiency gain would come from the second point, because you don't waste CPU on code that you don't use.

Does this make sense? Has anyone explored this?

[0]: https://nixos.org

1) Setting up the development environment - I currently use devcontainers for most things, but may also dig into nix -> isolated, portable, repeatable development environment 2) Exploring Echo - understand routing, requests, response, etc. 3) Incorporate Templ - integration with Echo, template composition, etc. 4) Integrating TailwindCSS - config for use with Echo/Templ, development cycle, deployment, etc. 5) Add in HTMX - endpoints, template structure, concepts, etc. 6) hyperscript for interactivity - client side interactivity

"Your greatest challenge lies ahead -- and downwards..."

Oh, wait a second, my bad, that's the quote on the box cover for Zork I: (

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Zork_I_box_ar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

)

What you really wanted was a link to where you could download Nix/NixOS -- and/or learn more about it!

Here ya go!

https://nixos.org/

"Your greatest challenge lies ahead -- and downwards..."

:-) :-)

I say all of the above in the spirit of humor -- and as a NixOS user and fan!

(But yes, there is a learning curve to it, so yes, learning Nix/NixOS could be a challenge!)

((But you're a bright person, you have Google and ChatGPT to assist you, and you like challenges!))