Setup nix with direnv

[ghostbuster91]

This PR setups up a nix shell for the project. I think that when native libraries are involved it is especially beneficial to use nix to guarantee reproducibility with ease.

In addition to that it also configures .envrc file that can be read by direnv when entering the project which will automatically put the user into the nix shell.

Otherwise it has to be invoked manually by calling nix-shell .

Todo:

• update readme

[eed3si9n]

The description contains a todo. Is this ready for a review?

[ghostbuster91]

@eed3si9n yes, I didn't want to spend time updating readme without knowing if you are ok in general with such approach. Sorry, I should've made it more clear. Let me know what you think and then I can update it.

[eed3si9n]

I am not against adding a Nix setup, but is the general intent to replace the existing GitHub Actions steps or our local development process with Nix? I am kind of curious since I know of Nix, but I have never used it, and I am not sure what the tradeoffs are.

[keynmol]

IMO - we don't need Nix on GHA because we want to rely on Tree Sitter's official bootstrap scripts which are all in the NPM package. To clarify - Tree Sitter CLI downloads the pre-built binary, and the parser itself is shipped as a set of C files, not as a set of binary artifacts. Therefore there aren't many moving parts where something like Nix can be helpful in any way.

That said, it seems to be the thing-of-the-day to have a Nix setup for development, so I'm happy to just have it available and documented

[ckipp01]

My two cents are basically the same. I don't mind having it here, with the hopes that a nix user will also maintain it. I wouldn't want to move CI to it or push that all users should have it locally to develop on this repo.

[ghostbuster91]

My intention was only to make it slightly more convenient for nix user, not to enforce it on the rest.

I have to admit that I haven't thought yet about using it on CI but @keynmol already answered that part :) If I might add two-cents here, it is all about making sure that the same version are used. For the development of grammar users need two things: node and c compiler. Nix takes care of that, but I agree that it is not that hard to ensure that manually.

Seems like we are on the same page, hence I will update the readme with the relevant section for nix-based users.

[eed3si9n]

Thanks, @ghostbuster91!