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NixCon 2023: Recap & Videos

Flox Team | 12 Oct 2023

NixCon 2023 in Darmstadt was three action-packed days of sessions, hallway conversations, and meals with friends and colleagues. The flox team was there - one of our purple shirts was almost always within sight.

We learned a lot and, if you were there, we hope you did too. If you weren't there, the recordings are live for you to watch. You can find them at the NixCon 2023 site.

There were talks from five flox team members. Here are some highlights from the flox team at Nixcon 2023.

Rust + Nix: More than the sum of their parts?

It's not easy to write language bindings. In fact, it's one of the more challenging things you can do - different type systems, approaches to multithreading, and toolchains can lead to cascading complexity. But that's just how Zach Mitchell rolls. In this talk, he shared his efforts towards developing Nix language bindings for Rust.

Nix State of the Union

Ron Efroni, flox CEO, joined Eelco Dolstra onstage for a status update on the Nix Foundation. They reviewed the financial status of the organization, shared growth stats, and reviewed major projects. This session recording was lost but slides can be found above.

How to teach Nix in 5 minutes

Nix is not the easiest thing to teach - especially all at once! You have to break it down into smaller, more chewable bites. In this talk, Rok Garbas shared his approach for teaching Nix in 5 minutes. Spoiler alert: you can't...but you can plant the seeds.

NixOS Foundation Board Panel

Ron Efroni returned to the stage for the NixOS Foundation Board panel, where he was joined by fellow board members Eelco Dolstra, Domen Kožar, Théophane Hufschmitt, and Jonas Chevalier. They held an engaging and interactive conversation about Nix governance, both today and in the future.

Overview: Nix in the Wild

Nix in the Wild is a collection of articles that capture the experiences of Nix users from discovery through implementation. We hope that they will help new users cross the chasm into Nix fandom.

In this session, Ross Turk (your humble author!) reviewed the program and shared quotes from the stories we've collected so far. He also talked a bit about the production of Nix Bricks, the wood and epoxy gift he created for speakers at NixCon.

Dynamic Derivations: what and why

Tom Bereknyei gave a lightning talk about dynamic derivations, digging into the details behind RFC 92 and the new approach to building that it proposes. He concluded with a call to action for all those interested in seeing the concept advance.

This is just a sampling of the content from NixCon 2023 in lovely Darmstadt. There were many, many more talks at the event, covering everything from deep technical nuance to community building. Head over to the NixCon 2023 site to find the rest of the videos.

Perhaps we'll see you at the next NixCon? Until then!