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Nix deals with software packages really well.

Which makes it well suited for "put in effort now, to save effort later".

My favourite use case for Nix is using it to declare what tools/libraries a project needs. Nix can make a bunch of packages available on PATH, without conflicting with what's already installed. -- This is like tools like Node Version Manager, or asdf.

Another feature I like is the command "nix run ...", which is similar to "docker run ..." in that it doesn't change what's installed system-wide, but runs the command on the host (and not inside a container).

The nix-based operating system NixOS allows for declaring the system configuration, and safely rolling back from changes to the system configuration.

> Is this something to pay attention to...

Right now, the learning curve is quite steep.

It used to be that threads mentioning Nix would attract many "I tried it, but it's too hard" comments.




I’ve tried it and it’s too hard ;) I’m saving it for when I have time, it deserves a sustained level of motivation to get up that learning curve.




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