25 lines
1 KiB
Markdown
25 lines
1 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: nix is like nvm, but for everything
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date: 2025-04-15
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permalink: daily/2025/04/15/nix-nvm
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tags:
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- software-development
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- nix
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cta: ~
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snippet: |
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nix is like nvm, but for everything.
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---
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I was recently explaining and demonstrating Nix and direnv to a colleague and showing how, when I moved into a directory, new packages or different versions of packages became available.
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If I left the directory, I was reverted back to my global packages and versions.
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In this demonstration, I was showing how I can have different versions of PHP and node for a particular project - replacing a lot of what I'd previously used tools like Vagrant and Docker for.
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I came up with a comparison between Nix and nvm - the node version manager - a tool that allows you to install multiple versions of nodejs and switch between them.
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Using Nix and direnv is more seamless, but it works for everything.
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I'm able to switch versions of PHP, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL or anything else I need with Nix.
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Not just node, and without needing containers.
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