Why hasn't config as code taken off for developer machines
Configuration as code has been a huge success for managing cloud servers, so I'm wondering why we haven't seen it take off for developer machines. Everywhere I've worked the first few days has been a nightmare of following out of date docs, hitting version conflicts with tools, lots of googling and time wasted. Why isn't there a better way to manage all this? I've worked at large and small companies, and never have had a smooth experience.
It's been pretty smooth the two places I've worked. Both have used a virtual machine setup with config that's partly shared with production, so there's incentive to make sure things are up to date.
Currently there's a large community forming around NixOS, which might be what you're looking for. That said NixOS still seems to have some rough edges so most people seem to prefer traditional distributions like Debian or Ubuntu.