Plurrrr

Recently I started using a Mac for the first time. The biggest downside I’ve noticed so far is that the package management is much worse than on Linux. At some point I got frustrated with homebrew because I felt like it was spending too much time upgrading when I installed new packages, and so I thought – maybe I’ll try the nix package manager!

nix has a reputation for being confusing (it has its whole own programming language!), so I’ve been trying to figure out how to use nix in a way that’s as simple as possible and does not involve managing any configuration files or learning a new programming language. Here’s what I’ve figured out so far! We’ll talk about how to:

1. install packages with nix
2. build a custom nix package for a C++ program called paperjam
3. install a 5-year-old version of hugo with nix

Git users think about branches and talk about branches. The Git documentation talks about branches and many of the commands mention branches. Pay attention to what experienced users say about branches while using Git, and it will be clear that they do not think of branches simply as just refs. In that sense, branches do exist: they are part of our mental model of how the repository works.

This document was originally written around 1997 for GNU Emacs version 19.29 and published under the title A Tutorial Introduction to GNU Emacs. It has subsequently been updated for version 28.2, and thoroughly revised and expanded. This is document version 28.2.43 and is an unfinished work-in-progress.