I like flakes a lot, speaking as a type of user which I’ll call a “casual packager”.
This is to say that I like being a good citizen and sharing my packaging efforts… while also simultaneously feeling totally uninterested in becoming an owner-for-life. Flakes let me share a package without those pesky strings – when the user installs a package using one of my flakes, a personal lockfile gets generated at the latest git commit and that’s that. If the user doesn’t like the version they get, then the power is in their hands to choose a different git ref via their own generated lockfile.
Obviously this is something of a user footgun, especially for consumers of high-impact or security-critical applications, but most of those things are already important enough to get packaged. When it comes to niche, infrequently updated stuff, this approach works super well and helps to draw many reluctant packagers like myself out into the open.
Flakes are optional
I think the bigger point is that they are experimental. Who wants to go into production with experimental stuff? Unfortunately, if my employer were to read a suggestion of using experimental stuff in production, it would be immediately rejected.
nixitself, however, has been getting some people interested at work and if things go well, might be integrated into production solutions we sell to customers.They really should be moved out of that category soon. They’ve been so fully embraced and used by the community that they’re effectively standard now.
The article clearly states otherwise
Flakes also are a symptom or cause of much intra-community strife between “pro-flakes” and “anti-flakes” factions
Oh, that’s easy – that’s utter bullshit. Article is generous, this is a blog post.
😂 why do you believe that?
Because I’m pretty active in the Nix community and have never seen a single anti-flakes comment anywhere. Plenty of people advocating for flakes, and those who don’t use or understand flakes. But never anyone who actively dislikes them.
OK, I see where you’re coming from. You’re interpreting “anti” as “dislike”. Have you considered interpreting it as those who don’t use and don’t want to use flakes?
Just because there is disagreement, doesn’t mean that it has to be tied to negative emotions like hate or dislike.
Well no, because that’s not what “anti” means.
And one can absolutely use NixOS without using flakes, whether they’re marked experimental or not. They’re simply a way to make inputs declarative, rather than the nix-channel method which is imperative.
So there’s no “disagreement” here either.
