[Nix-dev] Auto-generated expressions for applications

[Freddy Rietdijk]

Hi,

At several places in Nixpkgs we use auto-generated data, mostly for the
larger package sets like Haskell. Sometimes we also use auto-generated sets
for applications that may need different versions than are offered in the
main package sets. In the past months several issues/PR's have been opened
to add rather large Python applications to Nixpkgs, generated using
`pypi2nix`.

Using such tool to generate the expressions has some very big advantages.
However, there's also a disadvantage. The expressions shouldn't only be
updated when there's a new release of the application, but also whenever
there's security updates in any of its generated dependencies, which the
application maintainer now has to keep track of. Therefore, I find it quite
a risk to have separate package sets. At the same time, we'll also likely
run behind in the main package sets every once in a while.

What do you think of this issue? Any suggestions how we can improve this?
Maybe we could have a server/bot that runs update scripts and opens a PR
whenever there's an actual diff?

Freddy
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