[Nix-dev] NiJS package manager

[Matthew Sackman]

On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 10:52:10AM +0000, Marc Weber wrote:
> Thus eventually its time to think about which information could be
> shared. Who would join a "software version documentation" project
> allowing people to upload "the most recent version of my software is X,
> and it requires Z, FOO, BAR" ?

Lots of people. Lots of languages do this already. People don't have a
problem with adding gemfiles, pom.xmls, rebar.configs, package.jsons and
so on in their code repos (along with the more traditional autotools). I
would certainly be keen to see a switch from a central nixpkgs repo to a
system whereby the nix expression comes with the package itself. Yes,
lots of details to figure out there, but I think it's preferable for a
number of reasons. Then, obviously, there are central servers where this
data is held.

The interesting thing about the language-specific packaging is that it
makes assumptions that the only thing you're allowed to specified is
other items within the language eco-system. The language platform/RTS is
your only interface with the computer, so, for example, you don't see a
rebar.config demanding a particular version of libfoobarbaz (though
there's inevitably some bleed when you get to FFIs).

I'm guessing that the mechanical "let's attempt to translate
$language-specific-deps-file into nix" has been tried and found wanting?
I can see there's the node-packages-generated.nix, and others, but is
that approach appropriate to all such languages?

Matthew