Feedback-ID: ie3de48e3:Fastmail
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:06:29 +0200
From: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
To: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Cc: Greg Burd <greg@burd.me>,
	PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Add a Nix flake
Message-ID: <aq_LNx1TJ4qg3BVx@alvherre.pgsql>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
In-Reply-To: <58ed7628-7527-450d-8acc-b14a322e9375@dunslane.net>
Archived-At: 
 <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/aq_LNx1TJ4qg3BVx%40alvherre.pgsql>
Precedence: bulk

On 2026-Aug-25, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> Well, "growing" could cover a multitude of possibilities. It could mean
> there was one and now there are two. Maybe there are lots out there and I at
> least just haven't heard of it. But if you want to say that there is a
> significant number of people actually contributing here who use it that
> would be all the better for some evidence.

For what it's worth, I think a descriptive/declarative mechanism for
configuring buildfarm animals would beat the current Perl-code-based
system hands down.  For instance, if I want to switch an animal from
Configure to Meson, I have to essentially redo the whole config from
scratch, which is rather a mess.  I'd much rather state which features I
want to be used, and then have an intermediate layer figure out which
command line options must be used.

Maybe a Nix flake system would enable something like that without too
much development effort.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera        Breisgau, Deutschland  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"I'm impressed how quickly you are fixing this obscure issue. I came from 
MS SQL and it would be hard for me to put into words how much of a better job
you all are doing on [PostgreSQL]."
 Steve Midgley, http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-sql/2008-08/msg00000.php