An Introduction to Nix for Ruby Developers

1. nixpkgs

   1 1,018 18,942 10.0 Nix

   Nix Packages collection & NixOS

   

   let nixpkgs = import (builtins.fetchTarball { url = https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/ee4a6e0f566fe5ec79968c57a9c2c3c25f2cf41d.tar.gz; }) { }; targetRuby = nixpkgs.ruby_3_2; myBundler = nixpkgs.bundler.override { ruby = targetRuby; }; gems = nixpkgs.bundlerEnv { inherit (nixpkgs) ruby_3_2; name = "rails-gems"; bundler = myBundler; gemfile = ./Gemfile; lockfile = ./Gemfile.lock; gemset = ./gemset.nix; }; in nixpkgs.mkShell { buildInputs = [ targetRuby gems gems.wrappedRuby nixpkgs.bundler nixpkgs.bundix nixpkgs.nodejs nixpkgs.yarn nixpkgs.postgresql ]; }

2. SaaSHub

   www.saashub.com featured

   SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

   

3. nixpkgs-ruby

   2 2 131 8.0 Nix

   A Nix repository with all Ruby versions being kept up-to-date automatically

4. devbox

   3 63 9,231 9.5 Go

   Instant, easy, and predictable development environments

   

   A tool to experiment with is devbox. devbox turned a 10-year-old Macbook Pro laptop running macOS Big Sur into a development machine for a modern Rails application in a few minutes. The setup did not include automatic bundling of gems, but it did install Ruby (including bundler and gem), Redis, and PostgreSQL in an isolated and pristine shell environment. devbox eschews a bespoke programming language for configuration and uses JSON. The environment on the MacBook Pro booted from this minimal file named devbox.json:

5. rubygems

   4 220 3,720 9.9 Ruby

   Library packaging and distribution for Ruby.

   

   # From gemset.nix # actioncable = { dependencies = ["actionpack" "activesupport" "nio4r" "websocket-driver" "zeitwerk"]; groups = ["default"]; platforms = []; source = { remotes = ["https://rubygems.org"]; sha256 = "0ifiz4nd6a34z2n8lpdgvlgwziy2g364b0xzghiqd3inji0cwqp1"; type = "gem"; }; version = "7.1.3.2"; }; ## From Gemfile.lock # actioncable (7.1.3.2) actionpack (= 7.1.3.2) activesupport (= 7.1.3.2) nio4r (~> 2.0) websocket-driver (>= 0.6.1) zeitwerk (~> 2.6)

6. nix

   5 396 13,306 10.0 C++

   Nix, the purely functional package manager

   

   Nix is an entire universe of software. It runs on Linux and macOS, on both Apple Silicon and Intel processors, and has several components:

7. fish-shell

   6 344 27,631 9.9 Rust

   The user-friendly command line shell.

   

   # Launch the `fish` shell (see https://fishshell.com) nix run `nixpkgs#fish` martin@iMac ~/p/o/a/martin (ruby-on-nix)>

8. devenv

   7 102 4,725 9.9 Nix

   Fast, Declarative, Reproducible, and Composable Developer Environments

   

   devenv.sh merits exploration too. It is something of a hybrid, with a JSON-like programming language, YAML configuration, and Docker-like composition of services.

9. desktop

   8 222 20,101 9.9 TypeScript

   Focus on what matters instead of fighting with Git. (by desktop)

   

   Nix currently is akin to git's "porcelain": powerful but esoteric. However, much like git evolved into exoteric, user-friendly tools such as git-flow, GitHub Desktop, and Tower to become user-friendly, many developers are building abstractions, wrappers, and utilities to simplify Nix usage. Let's briefly look at a few of these tools now.

Suggest a related project