> I don't have the time or mental energy to deal with half-assed solutions anymore.

Exactly. I'd rather solve a problem in Nix then try some working, but half-baked alternative.

I looked at nix a while ago, concluded the versioning/chesumming is - a given sum should represent kind-of the same thing, but can mean really anything.

There was even a post on how to have a stable version for a tracking branch.

Now, I wouldn't mind, if it were explained exactly what guarantees the hashing provided, but there seemed to be pervasive misconception on what it provides.