[Nix-dev] Re: Reorganization of the nixpkg file hierarchy

[Arie Middelkoop]

A true Nix developer would love having it's package source files in a
similar obfusccated structure as the nix store. So, I suggest giving
each package a uuid and putting the nix file in: pkgs/<uuid>/package.nix.

But seriously, now somebody put some effort in reorganizing the files,
and probably for nothing because there is not a single good reason to
switch. Then this is a pity of the wasted effort, that should be
prevented somehow the next time. This is difficult, because then you
need to ask and is it clear who is practically in charge?

Andres Loeh wrote:
> Having used both Gentoo and NixOS,
> I don't see the advantage of Gentoo's categories over Nix's current system.
> In fact, as other have pointed out, I think having a single level is
> less convenient
> than having a full directory structure. You say that for Gentoo, it's
> immediately
> obvious where to put a new package. Why? Just because there are more packages
> in Gentoo, and it's easier to find a similar one? That'd hardly be an
> argument for
> the categorization, only one for putting more packages into Nix ...
> 
> Generally, cateogories serve a number of different purposes: organization of
> packages, finding packages, and disambiguation of names. Organization only
> applies to developers, and in the end, I don't care very much which system we
> use. I think the current one is fine, actually. For finding packages, I strongly
> believe that a keyword/tag system is superior to simple categories. Each package
> should be allowed to have multiple tags. For disambiguation, Nixpkgs currently
> doesn't have a system in place (whereas Gentoo categories are used for this
> purpose as well). That might be worth thinking about, because
> arbitrarily renaming
> one of two conflicting packages seems a bit strange.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Andres
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