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Comment on Ditching Docker for Local Development

You might be interested in this article that compares nix and docker. It explains why docker builds are not considered reproducible:

For example, a Dockerfile will run something like apt-get-update as one of the first steps. Resources are accessible over the network at build time, and these resources can change between docker build commands. There is no notion of immutability when it comes to source.

and why nix builds are a lot of the time:

Builds can be fully reproducible. Resources are only available over the network if a checksum is provided to identify what the resource is. All of a package’s build time dependencies can be captured through a Nix expression, so the same steps and inputs (down to libc, gcc, etc.) can be repeated.

Containerization has other advantages though (security) and you can actually use nix’s reproducible builds in combination with (docker) containers.

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nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
That seems like an argument for maintaining a frozen repo of packages, not against containers. You can only have a truly fully-reproducible build environment if you setup your toolchain to keep copies of every piece of external software so that you can do hermetic builds.

I think this is a misguided way to workaround proper toolchain setup. Nix is pretty cool though.

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- uthredii@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  That seems like an argument for maintaining a frozen repo of packages, not against containers.
  
  I am not arguing against containers, I am arguing that nix is more reproducible. Containers can be used with nix and are useful in other ways.
  
  an argument for maintaining a frozen repo of packages
  
  This is essentially what nix does. In addition it verifies that the packages are identical to the packages specified in your flake.nix file.
  
  You can only have a truly fully-reproducible build environment if you setup your toolchain to keep copies of every piece of external software so that you can do hermetic builds.
  
  Nix verifies the external software is the same with checksums. It also does hermetic builds.
  
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  - nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Nix is indeed cool. I just see it as less practical than maintaining a toolchain for devs to use. Seems like reinventing the wheel, instead of airing-up the tires. I could well be absolutely wrong there - my experience is mainly enterprise software and not every process or tool there is used because it is the best one.
    
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    huantian@fosstodon.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    @nickwitha_k @uthredii I’d like to think a better analogy would be that nix is like using a 3D model of a wheel instead of a compass and a straightedge to make wheels hehe 🙃
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    uthredii@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    I just see it as less practical than maintaining a toolchain for devs to use.
    
    There are definately some things preventing Nix adoption. What are the reasons you see it as less practical than the alternatives?
    
    What are alternative ways of maintaining a toolchain that achieves the same thing?
    
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CodeBlooded@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ll certainly give this a read!

Are you saying that nix will cache all the dependencies within itself/its “container,” or whatever its container replacement would be called?

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- uthredii@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Are you saying that nix will cache all the dependencies within itself/its “container,” or whatever its container replacement would be called?
  
  Yep, sort of.
  
  It saves each version of your dependencies to the /nix/store folder with a checksum prefixing the program name. For example you might have the following Firefox programs
  
  /nix/store/l7ih0zcw2csi880kfcq37lnl295r44pj-firefox-100.0.2 /nix/store/cm1bdi4hp8g8ic5jxqjhzmm7gl3a6c46-firefox-108.0.1 /nix/store/rfr0n62z21ymi0ljj04qw2d7fgy2ckrq-firefox-114.0.1
  
  Because of this you can largely avoid dependency conflicts. For example a program A could depend on /nix/store/cm1bdi4hp8g8ic5jxqjhzmm7gl3a6c46-firefox-108.0.1 and a program B could depend on /nix/store/rfr0n62z21ymi0ljj04qw2d7fgy2ckrq-firefox-114.0.1 and both programs would work as both have dependencies satisfied. AFAIK using other build systems you would have to break program A or program B (or find versions of program A and program B where both dependencies are satisfied).
  
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