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clarify what expressions and values are

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Valentin Gagarin 2022-08-01 18:14:15 +02:00
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source/tutorials/nix-language.md
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@ -27,6 +27,21 @@ See the [Nix manual][manual-language] for a full language reference.
- Familiarity with Unix shell to read command line examples
- Install the Nix package manager to run the examples
# Basic Concepts
Imagine the Nix language as *JSON with functions*.
The purpose of Nix language is to define structured data.
Functions help with conveniently producing more complex data, and assigning names allows manipulating complex data as units.
To that end, every valid piece of Nix language code is an *expression*.
Evaluating a Nix expression produces a single value.
Every Nix file (`.nix`) contains a single expression.
:::{note}
To *evaluate* means to transform an expression according to the language rules until no further simplification is possible.
:::
## Running examples
All examples in this guide are valid Nix files that you can run yourself