[Nix-dev] Nix Presentation at Syd-FP [Off-Topic]

[Jeevakan Suresh]

Hi Guys.

Last Thursday, I gave a talk at the Sydney functional programmers user
group about nix. Since I'm no expert on nix - I structured it more as a
discussion about package management - and nix's twist on the problem.

It was interesting that almost *everyone* had been burned by the
'standard' package managers at some point - and were quite enthused
about how nix could help. Also, convincing functional programmers that a
functional package manager is a good idea was barely a hard sell :)

The talk (by accident) was timed with the release of ubuntu 8.10. Most
people in the room either got burned in the upgrade process or chose not
to upgrade (and fresh install instead) because they *expected* to be
burnt. At the same time however they wouldn't consider switching to nix
just yet as they felt it wasn't mature enough to warrant the time
investment.

I mention this because (I think) there is a sizeable group of people who
are dissatisfied with the current generation of package managers and
there is a real niche which nix (and nixOS) can carve out for those
looking for saner approaches to system administration.

Cheers
Jeeva.

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