Hacker News Reader

I was definitely in the "I just dont get it" camp for a couple years before coming across a comment on HackerNews pointing to Burke Libbeys fantastic playlist on Nix [1]. It was a revelation and was what I needed to finally have the DSL click for me. Cant recommend it enough.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGI9KQ3_HP_OFRG6R-p4...

View on HN

Is there anything that explains the why and how a bit deeper?

As an example, in the video "Packaging a Gem as a Nix derivation", he basically just and copies and pastes another default.nix, changes some strings and mentions he doesn't understand what 'passthrough.updateScript' does, but just changes a string there too.

This doesn't really help me understand Nix.

I would watch the entire thing in order to get the "full experience" of his tutorial. This touches on things like the CLI vs just syntax.

If you are coming from the perspective of non-NixOS (e.g. HomeManager or just nixpkgs) then maybe start at his rundown of what NixOS is vs HomeManager [1].

Or if you really just want to understand the nix language itself then probably start at 'Demystifying nixpkgs' [2].

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUsQt4NRCnc&list=PLRGI9KQ3_H...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWJaTb5uoT0&list=PLRGI9KQ3_H...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com