Re: Building a software toolchain that works

[Katherine Cox-Buday <cox.katherine.e@gmail.com>]

I run Guix everywhere I can, and it's now the only way I develop software. Having said that, I have thought about this issue a little bit, and here's my opinion on why this happens.

Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> writes:

>  And they start out as the next new thing to solve all problems! If
> they would only would have used Guix to create a coherent build
> system...

Is Guix not a new thing designed to solve all problems? Why aren't we all just using Nix! Or Make!

The reality is that every new system is created because its creators feel that the available systems are deficient in some way. That opinion may not be shared by everyone.

In addition, because free software is largely developed in people's spare time, they're going to use whatever tools make them most productive or even just happy. They're probably not thinking about their software against the backdrop of the larger software ecosystem.

Finally, build tools which are bespoke to a language or use-case are usually going to be easier to work with because they don't have to consider the general or aggregate cases. So if I only live in 1 ecosystem, I'm going to learn that tool and use it any time I can.

Guix solves a lot of issues, and is wonderful to use, but I don't think it solves the most difficult issues: human issues :)

-- 
Katherine