How I nearly lost my mind fighting the Nix evaluator

I wanted algebraic effects in Nix. That led to trampolines, an abstract machine, and increasingly specific negotiations with the evaluator. These are my two NixCon 2026 talks about the resulting difficulties.

5-minute lightning talk

The thunk trap

Why a strict fold can return a record but overflow when asked for its total, and how one line of Nix breaks the dependency chain.

40-minute talk + questions

Trampolining Nix

I wanted algebraic effects. Each apparent fix led further into compiler theory, until I had an abstract machine and still wanted a loop.