Thank you very much, you described my experience perfectly and I went on researching what the "alice going down a rabbit hole" is: hyperfocus.[1]
It is linked to ADHD (which can be both with or without hyperactivity, ADD being the old term for the inattentive ADHD type)[2] and for some additional info, ADHD is the most common coexisting condition to ASD (autism).[3]
You might want to check that out!
Thanks again for this fantastic comment, it is so relatable that I honestly could have written it myself!
Most probably NixOS Wiki, it's not official but always comes up as the top result because the manual's titles are irrelevent when you're trying to solve a specific issue. The NixOS Wiki is very helpful in a lot of ways (there is more info than in the manuals and you don't have to troubleshoot for hours because you missed activating some options), butit is true that it is sometimes outdated :/
> The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprising semantics.
Absolutely, that is the major roadblock for Nix/OS in my opinion, with the new `nix` command, the documentation is way better but the language and OS documentation is still bad, if you search for something on a search engine, the top result will probably be the NixOS Wiki which is not even official! Manuals can come up but the title for the nix manual (not NixOS) is "NixOS - Nix 2.3.15 Manual" which is confusing by itself but even more so when you're trying to solve a specific problem and not just get the manual. Having the "NixOS" part at the end for example would already help. Having titles for different parts of the manuals would be best. However, manuals are single pages except for the new nix command manual.
That is a truly horrible user experience in my opinion...
NixOS is however very good in other areas so the experience is positive in general but if resolution of issues could be faster, it would help significantly. My guess is that they will push towards the new manual format, so this will get resolved eventually but it will probably take a long time.
They are also probably not aware of certain issues like the fact that having no roadmap is not great for end users or contributors and doesn't create this focused effort that is required to solve the issues mentioned. Nix devs seem to be a bit too technical which is becoming a problem. If you guix to nix, they are much more organized, if you go to their homepage and want to contribute, it is very clear where you can contribute and how.
Another example would be flakes. They created quite a hard split in the community between people that are using them and people that are not. They have some problems sure, but I think they should become standard and then be iterated upon.
To summarize, the Nix/OS project feels to me like it is still treated like a research project with no users and few contributors which is not the case.
[1] https://www.understood.org/articles/en/adhd-and-hyperfocus [2] https://www.verywellmind.com/add-and-attention-deficit-disor... [3] https://chadd.org/about-adhd/adhd-and-autism-spectrum-disord...