Nix Package Management (S04E02)

Show Notes

Nix is a functional package manager. It creates completely reproducible builds and package management, including support for multiple versions of packages side-by-size with no issues.

Chapters:

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:02:41] What is Nix?

[00:05:01] The Problem with Package Management

[00:09:41] How Nix Works

[00:15:08] Reproducible Environment = Less Bit Rot?

[00:17:46] Nix vs. Docker

[00:21:32] Adoption at Growing Startups

[00:26:05] Use Case: Consistency Across Environments

[00:28:04] Use Case: Provisioning New Dev Machines

[00:32:24] Use Case: Portable Editor Configs

[00:35:05] Why Hasn't This Taken Off?

[00:40:27] Leaky Abstractions

[00:44:17] Security and other enterprise value props

[00:52:31] Improving the documentation

[00:56:34] Nix for software archival/archaeology

[01:02:21] Reducing DevOps/SRE burden

[01:07:51] Integrating Nix directly into programming languages

[01:09:57] Someone should build the Heroku for Nix

[01:25:17] How to take a position on Nix

Links/Resources:

• https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf
• https://www.iohannes.us/en/commentary/nix-critique/
• https://nixos.org/guides/how-nix-works.html
• https://nix.dev/
• https://blog.replit.com/powered-by-nix
• https://blog.replit.com/nix-vs-docker
• https://blog.wesleyac.com/posts/the-curse-of-nixos
• https://bicompact.space/blog/2020/06/20/nix-os-thoughts/
• https://shopify.engineering/what-is-nix
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28241661
• https://nixcloud.io/tour
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGI9KQ3_HP_OFRG6R-p4iFgMSK1t5BHs

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The Technium is a weekly podcast discussing the edge of technology and what we can build with it. Each week, Sri and Wil introduce a big idea in the future of computing and extrapolate the effect it will have on the world.