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   Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 01:46:55 JST Julia Evans

   i tried nix for the first time 2 years ago and I've given up on using it as a package manager locally (I just went back to homebrew), but I'm still using NixOS. Even though it's very confusing it still feels like the easiest way for me to manage a server

   • Blaise Pabón - controlpl4n3 repeated this.
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     Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 01:46:51 JST Julia Evans

     in reply to

     I think one reason I often feel a bit conflicted about writing about Nix is that even though I use it myself, it's only because my choice to use it doesn't impact anyone but me

     I've had too many experiences where someone on a team chose to use a "difficult" piece of software (like bazel) despite huge usability issues because it had some perceived benefit and didn't acknowledge the impact that can have on other people who have to use the software

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     Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 01:46:52 JST Julia Evans

     in reply to

     it's a bit funny to me that having a declarative way to configure my servers feels so important to me, I think it's because I touch my servers pretty rarely and so if the way I manage them isn't declarative then I just get more and more and more scared of what is happening there over time.

     and also I have zero self discipline so if I use ansible I will always at some point just SSH into the machine and start changing random stuff without putting it into ansible. With Nix I can't do that.

     Blaise Pabón - controlpl4n3 and Mauricio Teixeira 🇧🇷🇺🇲 repeated this.
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     Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 01:46:54 JST Julia Evans

     in reply to

     I remembered from this thread that I use nix not because I really like it but because configuring servers without a declarative system always stresses me out and I guess right now I'm willing to give up a lot of nice things I like (like "being able to understand error messages”) to get a declarative config system

     (usually I get a "declarative system" by using something like github pages or fly.io but for a VPS it's nix)

     Blaise Pabón - controlpl4n3 repeated this.