It’s too bad that they never got around to comparing OSTree with Nix. The “anti-hysteresis” property they describe is not just enabled by Nix, but can be taken further than with OSTree, since a NixOS system only needs /boot and /nix to be mounted at boot. This leads to NixOS Impermanence.
Also, while “anti-hysteresis” is a cool phrase, I wonder whether the word “memoryless” would be a better choice in English, both for the Markovian implication of no prior system state, and also for communicating the concept more directly.
While I think anti-hysteresis is incredibly accurate technically it’s such a rare word that I think it’s unfair to the many computer users who aren’t really advanced English users or just familiar with academic physics jargon. I like memoryless because it uses simpler language that translates easily.
It’s too bad that they never got around to comparing OSTree with Nix. The “anti-hysteresis” property they describe is not just enabled by Nix, but can be taken further than with OSTree, since a NixOS system only needs
/bootand/nixto be mounted at boot. This leads to NixOS Impermanence.Also, while “anti-hysteresis” is a cool phrase, I wonder whether the word “memoryless” would be a better choice in English, both for the Markovian implication of no prior system state, and also for communicating the concept more directly.
While I think anti-hysteresis is incredibly accurate technically it’s such a rare word that I think it’s unfair to the many computer users who aren’t really advanced English users or just familiar with academic physics jargon. I like memoryless because it uses simpler language that translates easily.