nix is far simpler for consumption. My coworkers don't like fancy new things, and they haven't had any complaints. They don't have to dick around with half a dozen different commands to get everything set up, or bother with docker volumes/port mapping/etc. They just run nix-shell and it all works. That's all you have to do with a shell.nix file, it's very simple.
It is harder to write on average atm, but it's very much worth it to me when it comes to sharing code for development. Also, LLMs help quite a bit when writing nix.
It's the same thing for Docker. Just one command. The nix is much harder to deal with mainly because shell.nix is harder to read and write then a Docker file.
Additionally nix uses shell hacks to get everything working. Docker uses an os primitive DESIGNED for this very use case.
And additionally, because docker uses os primitives you can use docker-compose to manage multiple processes on multiple different environments simultaneously. Something that's much harder to do with nix shell.
You're seriously overestimating how hard this is, especially with poetry2nix. I like docker just fine and have used it in a development workflow and it's a pain in the ass and should never be used for that. It's great for packaging stuff up for prod, though.
Also, one man's "DESIGNED" is another man's hacks. I don't see anything wrong with how nix works. Potato/potato, I guess.
I'm not overestimating anything. it's not hard once the shell.nix is there, but everything to get to that point is waaay harder than docker. In the end once you're done you have two ways of doing the same thing with one command.
I think I know what you're getting at. nix-shell provides a fast way to get access to that specific shell environment which is a bit more annoying to do with docker. All docker needs to do is provide this interface by default and the only surface level differences between the two techniques is really just the configuration.
>Also, one man's "DESIGNED" is another man's hacks. I don't see anything wrong with how nix works. Potato/potato, I guess.
By any colloquial usage of the term "designed" in this context by any unbiased party, it's obvious Nix is more hacky by any charitable interpretation. NixOS is a layer on top of linux, containers are a linux feature. Thus creating a layer on top of linux to use existing features is the more hacky less elegant solution.
It can actually go in the other direction. Rather then use shell tricks Nix can also use containers under the hood. Overall though the API for docker is superior in terms of editing config files but not switching shells. Additionally the underlying implementation for docker is also superior.
Your main problem is with the API which is just opinionated.
It is harder to write on average atm, but it's very much worth it to me when it comes to sharing code for development. Also, LLMs help quite a bit when writing nix.