Comment by choobacker

Yes, the ergonomics are poor. I endure them for the results, but the ergonomics should be better.

Guix has better ergonomics, but it's own set of downsides.

I expect the underlying idea of holistic declarative systems is sound, and we're awaiting a polished alternative. Maybe it'll reuse nixpkgs under the hood , but replace the name, the tooling, and the language exposed to the user.