It seem like nix has become quite popular on HN over the last few years... [1] Engineering teams at notable tech companies (shopify, replit) are also beginning to adopt it.
But why has it suddenly become so popular? NixOS was first released in 2003. Has Nixpkgs finally hit a critical mass that you can build full projects with it? Did documentation just become much better? Did people just exploring more during covid?
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=nix&sort=byPopularity&type=story
- it has to do with DLTs like Cardano adopting Nix.
- influencers like youtubers and podcasters have began talking about it
- migration from IRC to Matrix, so people can discover it more easily
- people who are into functional programming cycles often talk about it, e.g. haskell, lisp, emacs...
- with the raise of Flatpaks and Snaps, people have been talking more often about Nix as an alternative. The same can be said about Docker/containers and is often suggested as alternative
- mainstream Linux distros taking inspiration from NixOS to make their own immutable and atomic OSs: Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, Clear Linux, ...
- since mid 2010s there was some push towards making documentation better for beginners. The official website also got a modern look to be more attractive. So also taking into account nixpkgs is probably good enough for the average user and has a good enough ecosystem around it as well, this all means NixOS has become mature enough for willing/passionate adopters (e.g. Arch users who want the next shiny tech), and who will talk about it in every given opportunity.