[Nix-dev] How do you work on big packages?

[Marc Weber]

Nix is 'software distribution platform', not a dev platform.

Depending on the task other solutions might be better.

For instance  restarting nginx/ apache the nixos way is also slower than
edit/restart cycle on 'debian'. So use the right tool / env for your
job.

There was a hack to impurely rewrite some dependencies for security
reasons - forgot about it - so maybe you can force impurity to speed up
your workflow.

In the kernel case hat takes most time will be 'building it', thus you
can try 'get compiled data' from your directory (binary distribution)
like, then use something like nixos build-vm or such (disk caching
reasons - no restart required).

You can also try creating links to your 'dev' directory and switch off
sandoxing and add a 'dummy env vars' which you increment to force
rebuilding.

Marc Weber