Devbox
Dev tools
development environment manager
SHOW HN2022
How HN took it
27 positive, 41 neutral or asking, 7 mixed, 9 critical, out of 84 comments about the project. Thread score +0.17.
Idea: 21 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 4 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstDesign: 2 for, 0 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Makes Nix usable without its complexity
From 3 comments
Looks really good. A layer over Nix that makes it tolerable sounds like a godsend. I’ve had a TODO item for “somehow use Nix for our dev env” at Notion since 2019, but I keep…
jitl on HNI use nix/devshell/direnv for pretty much everything nowadays, any tooling that makes nix easier for all users is a absolutely a good thing. Nix going "mainstream" would benefit…
reocha on HNNice. I’ve been waiting for an abstraction on top of nix.
galbijimmy on HN
Faster than Docker on Mac, runs on laptop filesystem
From 2 comments
Having a deterministic environment, but that is actually running on your laptop is so much better than working inside a docker container. Inside a container the file system is…
dloreto on HNLooks really good. A layer over Nix that makes it tolerable sounds like a godsend. I’ve had a TODO item for “somehow use Nix for our dev env” at Notion since 2019, but I keep…
jitl on HN
Objections
Leaky abstraction; Nix complexity resurfaces when things break
From 2 comments
Looks really nice! I'm wondering though whether this is luring me into a dangerous complexity cliff. It seems easy to start using, but will I run into some issues a few months…
amir-h on HNNix shells is a killer feature so it seems smart to me to create a wrapper around it to simplify the experience. On the other hand, it's another layer of abstraction that you…
m1keil on HN
Locale and shell layering issues make it unpredictable
From 1 comment
There are also some rough edges that you need to take care. For instance, my nix installation `locale` was not `UTF-8` (after the first `devbox shell` run), but all my tools and…
rodrigodlu on HN
Shells out to nix-shell, likely bash-only and not isolated
From 1 comment
This is shelling out to nix-shell (https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox/blob/97c19c370287e203bbae9338d79d6edd355614df/nix/nix.go#L16) which means that it will only support bash…
x0rg on HN
Requests
Docker/container support
From 2 comments
Can you run a Docker container (or many) inside Devbox?
danwee on HNThe devbox is awesome. We use https://github.com/tensorchord/envd to develop AI/ML applications. And it will be great if users can build and deliver devbox images with a CI/CD…
gaocegege on HN
Nix flakes and version pinning
From 1 comment
Is it possible to pin a version of the dependencies? Is there any support for nix flakes?
Iridescent_ on HN
Questions
How it differs from plain Nix or Dockerfiles
From 2 comments
How does it compare to nix?
baby on HNI am happy to see Nix going more mainstream. Earlier this year we saw Nixpacks and now this.
yewenjie on HN
IDE integration
From 2 comments
Looks really useful! How do you go about integrating IDEs (like vscode) with the nix shell?
jsmeaton on HNWondering how well it integrates with IDEs. Anyone tried it with Intelllij?
abiro on HN
Alternatives named
Docker / Dockerfiles
From 2 comments
``` A consistent shell for everyone on the team Declare the list of tools needed by your project via a devbox.json file and run devbox shell. Everyone working on the project gets…
TekMol on HNI'm having a hard time seeing the advantage of this vs using the same docker image with all the right dependencies etc across a team. What am I missing? This way or that, the…
btbuildem on HN
asdf and .tool-versions
From 1 comment
This looks really cool! Can you explain the differences between `asdf` and the .tool-versions file? I can currently add a .tool-versions file in my project folder and run `asdf…
sergiotapia on HN
toolbox and distrobox
From 1 comment
So essentially this seems like another implementation of what toolbox and distrobox is implementing. https://github.com/containers/toolbox/ https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox…
Foxboron on HN