Indeed, as a newcomer to Nix I was immediately put off by the arcaness of everything. I don't want my first experience to be memorized obscure paths and funky command line arguments (such may justified _later_ when more advanced options are wanted). I'm glad it works for people and I gather nix-env is a step in the right direction, but it's IMO not quite there yet.

EDIT: example, why is it

    nix-env -qaP git

instead of

    nix search git

It actually is! There are lots of examples of arcane Nix commands, but as of Nix 2.0, you actually can type `nix search git`. And it works much better than `nix-env -qa` ever did.

Your point stands, though. For example, why is it:

    nix-env -iA nixpkgs.git

Instead of:

    nix install git

(I know what the answer is, but still, it's a question that I think a lot of newcomers are going to ask.)

Newcomer here. What's the answer?

If php and ruby are your primary packages, why would you need something other than macports? Both are up to date with the latest versions.

Cool response. In your opinion, what advantage does Macports offer over homebrew? I'll admit When I read tutorials on new frameworks, tools, etc, they almost always assume everyone uses homebrew. So (perhaps lazily) I just did the same.