rnix-parser VS nix

I definitely plan to support as much as I can, but there is definitely a level of complexity that can never be truly translated to a graphical tool. What I've found helpful during development for me is that I split the frontend GUI and the backed parser and editor into two projects (nixos-conf-editor and nix-editor), that way I could tackle a lot of the parsing and editing alone without worrying about specific GUI features needed (and use it for other projects). Later when I need some feature I add it to nix-editor. So far nix-editor supports simple attribute modification, array adding and popping, and recursive attribute definition and dereferencing. It's definitely not perfect by any means, but so far it's been enough for the projects I've been working on. I definitely need to credit any success I've had so far to the developers of rnix-parser which translates nix expression to easy to manage ASTs.

I'm hopeful that with https://github.com/nix-community/rnix-parser being a thing now, we can get some better Nix tooling, particularly for stuff like linting and doc extraction.

Okay, yes, I agree with all of that. Flakes are kind of a module system, but having clearer semantics around functions and classes would definitely help with both code readability and producing better stack traces.

And a proper type system would be awesome.

Regarding docs, it is interesting that portions of the nixpkgs source do seem to have docblock-like comments above the functions, but AFAICT there's no formalized process for extracting or rendering those. Given that https://github.com/nix-community/rnix-parser exists, I wonder how big of a leap it would be to actually extract those, render them into rST pages, and generate a searchable Sphinx manual.

> 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