== Introduction

=== Why Nix?

If you’ve opened this PDF, you already have your own motivation for
learning Nix. Here’s how it helps me. As a researcher, I tend to work on
a series of short-term projects, mostly demos and prototypes. For each
one, I typically develop some software using a compiler, often with some
open source libraries. Often I use other tools to analyse data or
generate documentation, for example.

Problems would arise when handing off the project to colleagues; they
would report errors when trying to build or run the project. Belatedly I
would realise that my code relies on a library that they need to
install. Or perhaps they had installed the library, but the version
they’re using is incompatible.

Using containers helped with the problem. However, I didn’t want to
_develop_ in a container. I did all my development in my nice, familiar,
environment with my custom aliases and shell prompt. and _then_ I
containerised the software. This added step was annoying for me, and if
my colleague wanted to do some additional development, they would
probably extract all of the source code from the container first anyway.
Containers are great, but this isn’t the ideal use case for them.

Nix allows me to work in my custom environment, but forces me to specify
any dependencies. It automatically tracks the version of each dependency
so that it can replicate the environment wherever and whenever it’s
needed.

=== Why _flakes_?

Flakes are labeled as an experimental feature, so it might seem safer to
avoid them. However, they have been in use for years, and there is
widespread adoption, so the aren’t going away any time soon. Flakes are
easier to understand, and offer more features than the traditional Nix
approach. After weighing the pros and cons, I feel it’s better to learn
and use flakes; and this seems to be the general consensus.

=== Prerequisites

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need access to a computer
or (virtual machine) with Nix installed and _flakes enabled_.

I recommend the installer from
https://zero-to-nix.com/start/install[zero-to-nix.com]. This installer
automatically enables flakes.

More documentation (and another installer) available at
https://nixos.org/[nixos.org].

To enable flakes on an existing installation, see the instructions in
the https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes[NixOS wiki].

=== Tip: Pay attention to those hyphens

There are hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of many Nix commands. For
example, `nix-shell` and `nix shell` are two different commands.

Generally speaking, the unhyphenated versions are for working directly
with flakes, while the hyphenated versions are for everything else.