Garn, a TypeScript-based Nix front end(garnix.io) |
Garn, a TypeScript-based Nix front end(garnix.io) |
"Garn" is German for Yarn, another package manager in the JS/TS ecosystem.
"Nix" (this is probably known by now) is a German/Dutch term for "nothing".
"Garnix" in combination would colloquially be "really nothing [at all]".
What’s the rationale for the heavy use of tagged template literals in the API? From the outside, it seems like an esoteric choice that makes ergonomics slightly worse, less approachable, and less idiomatic. This seems to fly directly in the face of the goals of this project.
All that said, I could be convinced that the API choice isn’t a mistake.
At any rate, I’m excited to see where this project goes.
Language familiarity, first-class IDE experience, and TS's type system.
Nix truly is a game changer, but the UX is not getting better in any meaningful way. I do think it will be a fantastic foundation for an abstraction layer on top.
Note: for anyone else trying Nix but bouncing off of it (especially flakes), Home Manager is where I'd recommend starting.
It lets you declaratively manage all your packages, home files, shell configs etc from inside a single text file, using Nix derivations. Without having to deal with much Nix language or its shell interface
Spinning up a new Mac takes minutes, Linux server most time is deciding if there are any unique packages/config just for it. Everything else the same.
Love it.
> Currently go, npm, and haskell projects are supported.
Implicit here is that you're missing out on one of Nix' strengths—that being how Nix-lang is a lingua franca for every ecosystem with a presence in Nixpkgs. I've never written or even seen a line of Pascal, but it doesn't matter because of the 'package' abstraction. I can build and/or install a Pascal program the same as any other.
> With Typescript, you get the full power of programming — the ability to easily factor out variables, to connect and abstract functionality, to reuse code, to write tests.
Nix-lang also has these, it's just FP rather than imperative. (Except unit tests unless you include Hydra or something.)
> [Nix has tech debt, such as] the somewhat cumbersome and inconsistent CLI interface. The garn CLI is a fresh start.
Nix also has this in the form of the "new" CLI a.k.a. Flakes a.k.a. nix3.
On the whole, I can see this being useful to someone trying to convert their coworkers from NPM to Nix, but not all that impactful in the field of Nix UX improvements. Nickel and co. are where the good ideas are coming from IMO.
Each time learning a little bit more.
Then just used nix-darwin as a Homebrew replacement for a while.
Then adopted Home Manager. Spent a day learning the Nix language, finally.
Tried flakes, couldn’t figure it out. Tried again later, cargo culting someone else’s config. Learnt the language again. Rewrote their config from scratch, from first principles, testing inside VMs.
This is where I’m at now. Don’t spend much time on it any more, just periodically add a package or tweak my config.
Works well enough for me now. And I basically never experience “everything broken after Homebrew update” any more.
Yeah, that's definitely the intention. If you end up trying it out, I'd love to hear how it went!
But maybe that would create too much overhead..
import * as garn from "https://garn.io/ts/v0.0.14/mod.ts";
import * as pkgs from "https://garn.io/ts/v0.0.14/nixpkgs.ts";
export const main: garn.Executable = garn.shell`${pkgs.jq}/bin/jq --version`;
But yeah, I completely agree with the sentiment here. This is a rather cumbersome syntax to support a use-case that we don't even have examples for. So clearly the normal usage shouldn't force you to use template strings.
Perhaps a standalone function (like nixRaw) could work to enable this.