[Nix-dev] nix channels and nix expressions

[Tony White]

2009/9/25 Lluís Batlle <viriketo at gmail.com>:
> 2009/9/25 Michael Raskin <7c6f434c at mail.ru>:
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>> Lluís Batlle wrote:
>>> The current stable releases, afaik, have only been snapshots taken of
>>> nixpkgs before huge steps forward, and they have not been maintained
>>> appart, so they are as stable as the trunk was at that moment. I don't
>>> think those moments were of extraordinary stability of trunk.
>>
>> I think that stable releases mark the revisions you should _never_ use.
>> It is unfortunate, but there is some reason for that: Nix-related
>> projects are stable between inflows of fresh ideas but then there is no
>> milestone to declare release; when there is a milestone, there is a lot
>> of small changes before and after, so you get what you may want to
>
> I think that the 'stable' branch should not be declared stable as long
> as it is not maintained apart from the main development, keeping some
> kind of 'static-ness' to be defined. Maybe not update the pkgs to
> newer versions? I don't know if it would be of any advantage.
>
> What would be the advantage of a trunk-snapshot (what we now call
> "stable") other than directly the trunk?
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Hi all,
Maybe the build farm could do a test upgrade between the old and new
snapshots before release, to ensure backwards compatibility, so that
people can upgrade from snapshot to snapshot if they choose to follow
stable?
Then if it if it breaks before releasing the new snapshot.

Does nix have the ability of prioritising itself to be downloaded,
installed and the new version switched to before performing the rest
of a large expression transaction which involves updating other
packages; such as a system update?
If yes, then that would make breaking snapshot upgrades difficult if
they were tested before release.

Thanks,
Tony