Why std?

Problem

Nix is marvel to ones and cruelty to others.

Much of this professional schism is due to two fundamental issues:

• Nix is a functional language without typing
• Therefore, Nix-enthusiast seem to freaking love writing the most elegant and novel boilerplate all over again the next day.

The amount of domain specific knowledge required to untangle those most elegant and novel boilerplate patterns prevent the other side of the schism, very understandably, to see through the smoke the true beauty and benefits of nix as a build and configuration language.

Lack of typing adds to the problem by forcing nix-practitioners to go out of their way (e.g. via divnix/yants) to add some internal boundaries and contracts to an ever morphing global context.

As a consequence, few actually do that. And contracts across internal code boundaries are either absent or rudimentary or — yet again — "elegant and novel". Neither of which satisfactorily settles the issue.

Solution

std doesn't add language-level typing. But a well-balanced folder layout cut at 3 layers of conceptual nesting provides the fundamentals for establishing internal boundaries.

Cell → Cell Block → Target → [Action]

Where ...

• Cells group functionality.
• Cell Blocks type outputs and implement Actions.
• Targets name outputs.

Programmers are really good at pattern-abstraction when looking at two similar but slightly different things: Cells and Cell Blocks set the stage for code readability.

Cell Blocks only allow one possible interface: {inputs, cell}:

• cell the local Cell, promoting separation of concern
• inputs the deSystemizeed flake inputs — plus:
  • inputs.self = self.sourceInfo; reference source code in nix; filter with std.incl; don't misuse the global self.
  • inputs.cells: the other cells by name; code that documents its boundaries.
  • inputs.nixpkgs: an instantiated nixpkgs for the current system;

Now, we have organized nix code. Still, nix is not for everybody. And for everybody else the std TUI/CLI companion answers a single question to perfection:

The GitOps Question:

What can I actually do with this std-ized repository?  

The Standard Answer:

std breaks down GitOps into a single UX-optimized TUI/CLI entrypoint.  

Benefit

Not everybody is going to love nix now.

But the ones, who know its secrets, now have an effective tool to more empathically spark the joy.

Or simply: 💔 → 🧙 → 🔧 → ✨→ 🏖️

The smallest common denominator, in any case:

Only ever install a single dependency (nix) and reach any repository target. Reproducibly.