Reading up on Nix
9 deep · digging since dec 25, 25
- A build graph that rolls dice
The article explains how Nix’s dynamic derivations turn its build system from applicative to monadic, allowing the build graph to be defined during execution rather than up front.
- Review a pull request by booting it
The trynix-preview GitHub action comments a link on pull requests that lets reviewers boot the PR’s build in the browser via trynix.dev, needing no local build or servers.
- Using a Linux Laptop in 2026
The author describes using a Dell XPS 14 with Intel Ultra X7 Panther Lake running NixOS in 2026, highlighting driver challenges, AI assistance, battery limits, and collaboration tool issues.
- Your executable is a SQLite database
Replacing ELF with SQLite as an executable format (SELF) yields queryable binaries with ~1% size overhead, enabling closure‑based dependency packing and SQL‑based tooling.
- Three ways to smuggle SQLite into Nix
The author demonstrates four methods—exec, importNative, giant Nix file, and WASM—to embed SQLite queries in Nix, comparing their speed and resource usage.
- Your CI should be disposable
The article argues CI should only schedule builds, delegating actual builds to local tools like Docker or Nix so workflows remain runnable even if CI services fail.
- Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never works out
Using Git as a package manager backend causes performance and scaling problems as ecosystems grow, leading to workarounds like proxies and sparse checkouts.
- Package managers keep using git as a database, it never works out
Package managers that use git as a database for registry data inevitably hit scaling limits, forcing migrations to HTTP-based or CDN-backed solutions.