NixCon2024 devenv is switching to Tvix

[@adrianscarlett]

1:15 Two things for me. The learning curve and unhelpful error messages.

[@Fabian-_-]

Same, being used to the awesome error messages of Rust and then using Nix is a stark contrast :D kinda feels reminds me of the worst cases in Java or C, you either get millions of lines and have fun searching for the cause or get basically no stack trace ^^

[@robindeboer7568]

Tvix not having flakes seems like a deal breaker for something like devenv ngl. The whole nice thing was that you could just pass around your env to your team as a flake. With tvix not having flakes, does this mean that feature of devenv comes to an end? If so I'm not sure I could see anyone seriously continuing to use it ngl

[@idworka9]

Do you like working on an env that is not accustomed to you?

[@sandy_doo]

Not necessarily. devenv's configuration language is Nix. There's no reason why we can't ship the actual config as a flake output. What will have to change is how that config is evaluated. `nix develop` was never designed with anything remotely resembling devenv in mind and people don't realize the lengths devenv goes to to make it somewhat usable. The whole point of switching to Tvix _internally_ is to drop the baggage associated with `nix develop`. I imagine we'll relegate `nix develop` to exposing the devenv CLI in a shell that then gets immediatelly exec-ed to a shell built by devenv + tvix. RE what tvix doesn't currently support, and that devenv relies on, is the `getFlake` function that lets you evaluate a flake. We're working on contributing this to tvix.

[@domenkozar3608]

Tvix is going to support flakes, don't worry. Flakes are a terrible interface, hence why we built devenv :)

[@MarkRuvald]

Good to see Tvix being used. But now that I understand devenv I wouldn't use devenv.

[@septias5006]

😂