Unpopular opinion: The Windows Registry, a centralized, strongly typed key:value database for application settings, is actually superior to hundreds of individual dotfiles, each one written in its own janky customized DSL, with its own idea of where it should live in the file system, etc.
The language itself has no type enforcement, the type checking is implemented within nixpkgs. This might seem like pedantry, but it really matters for things like LSPs (text editor autocomplete). I think that’s what scares some people off: it’s like OG Minecraft, you need to have the wiki/search.nixos.org open while you are doing your editing.
That being said, the type checking goes much deeper than what the windows registry does - e.g. it won’t allow you to enable conflicting services - like grub and systemd-boot - at the same time.
Unpopular opinion: The Windows Registry, a centralized, strongly typed key:value database for application settings, is actually superior to hundreds of individual dotfiles, each one written in its own janky customized DSL, with its own idea of where it should live in the file system, etc.
btw i use Nixos
The language itself has no type enforcement, the type checking is implemented within nixpkgs. This might seem like pedantry, but it really matters for things like LSPs (text editor autocomplete). I think that’s what scares some people off: it’s like OG Minecraft, you need to have the wiki/search.nixos.org open while you are doing your editing.
That being said, the type checking goes much deeper than what the windows registry does - e.g. it won’t allow you to enable conflicting services - like grub and systemd-boot - at the same time.