... but it "does the job better than anything else could".
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This is the issue I have with the whole nix discourse: it's hailed as this great magical tool. But when pressed for details it's always this: weird commands, configs, working or non-working wrappers etc.
This is just from my experience, I'm not part of any kind of Nix cult or anything, not that I'm aware of.
I don't know what you're talking about re: third party wrappers, this is just an option for a slightly easier and perhaps more robust install. And homebrew isn't free of issues at all.
So a "better than anything" still needs "a better more robust install" and you still use homebrew for "packages that are packaged better like ... the extremely popular and often installed ffmpeg"
;)
> And homebrew isn't free of issues at all.
No one advertises brew as "the best", "better than everything else" etc.
BTW, looked at Determinate Nix. It's a custom distribution and a custom daemon, and its own fork of documentation
I don't use Determinate Nix but I've heard it recommended. As I've said I've had 1 or 2 issues with my Nix install on Mac over several years.
Re: ffmpeg, it's just something do to with default codecs or something I don't remember, I'm not even sure I really needed it but I saw it on my packages list and since I use nix-darwin it doesn't matter that much where the package comes from. I have hundreds of packages from nixpkgs, many shared with Linux, and quite a few Mac specific ones.
Again, I'm not part of a Nix cult, I just genuinely have had an overall great experience with Nix and I find the criticism overblown. I guess since a subset of users are very enthusiastic and vocal about it it attracts this.
- worse ux (nix commands are much more cumbersome and often make no sense compared to `brew install`)
- you have to use some third-party wrappers to make it work on Mac
- features incomplete and outdated packages (and is missing others apparently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44034446)
... but it "does the job better than anything else could".
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This is the issue I have with the whole nix discourse: it's hailed as this great magical tool. But when pressed for details it's always this: weird commands, configs, working or non-working wrappers etc.