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You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience. I also really hate how every OSX app has it's o

by arohner 17y ago

You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience. I also really hate how every OSX app has it's own way of doing updates. Even if the OSX makes desktop apps not need dependencies, it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.

sjs 17y ago
It's pretty silly to have a serious dev machine without a package manager. What do you do when you migrate to a new machine? I like to copy a list of packages and then run an update/upgrade command. Linux wins by far. Copying a directory of self-contained apps is quick and easy as well... but if you need binaries for a newer arch, say x86-64, you'll have to download a new copy, whereas the package manager solution has you covered.
- gommm 17y ago
  That's why I use macports on os X... While it's not provided directly by apple, you can't say that there isn't any package manager...
  - sjs 17y ago
    That's true. I quite like OS X and use MacPorts as well. These days I use OS X almost exclusively. The only reason Linux wins is OS X still has some installers. Not many, but any at all are too many for me. Copying app bundles around is easy enough though and they make things Just Work w/ fat binaries, so kudos to Apple for making that easy. Their Migration Assistant is slow, but still eases much of the pain of migration.
rbanffy 17y ago
> it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. No. If you are asking for updates and fixes, you are doing it wrong. It should be automated, because you shouldn't have to bother to remember pressing a button. I set up my mother with a Linux box and sure as hell I don't count on her pressing buttons without some prompting. > As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day. If you have a defective library that's bundled in five apps and needs fixing, you will have five upgrades instead of one. And, possibly, an OS update and a reboot. But only if you are lucky and the publishers of the five programs are paying attention. Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  "Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one." Actually, I prefer the five. When you have a shared library, and bugs are fixed, applications that use the library might well break. Shared libraries mean that either applications are at risk of completely failing to work, or that the library developers have to flag the bugfix as a new version to avoid that. Either way, incompatible bugfixes require application updates anyway, so you might as well avoid the breakage and use static libraries. It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage, and that's just not a problem any more. Down with shared libraries and dependency hell, I say! ;)
  - senko 17y ago
    > It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage. Shared libraries are shared in memory too. If you have 5 separate copies of libfoo and you start up applications using them, you'll have 5 copies of libfoo in memory too. And memory is much scarcer resource than disk space.
    - AlisdairO 17y ago
      True, although code memory space consumption is not the issue it once was. The consumption of most of the big hogs (web browsers, word processors, etc) is data-related.
      - windsurfer 17y ago
        Xulrunner takes 40 megs on a good day...
        randallsquared 17y ago
        So, pretty trivial, except on mobile, you agree?
randallsquared 17y ago
"As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day." Ubuntu is essentially the same in that; some weeks I come home from work to see the "Update Manager" floating in the background two or three times. :)

by arohner 17y ago

sjs 17y ago

It's pretty silly to have a serious dev machine without a package manager. What do you do when you migrate to a new machine? I like to copy a list of packages and then run an update/upgrade command. Linux wins by far. Copying a directory of self-contained apps is quick and easy as well... but if you need binaries for a newer arch, say x86-64, you'll have to download a new copy, whereas the package manager solution has you covered.

gommm 17y ago
That's why I use macports on os X... While it's not provided directly by apple, you can't say that there isn't any package manager...
- sjs 17y ago
  That's true. I quite like OS X and use MacPorts as well. These days I use OS X almost exclusively. The only reason Linux wins is OS X still has some installers. Not many, but any at all are too many for me. Copying app bundles around is easy enough though and they make things Just Work w/ fat binaries, so kudos to Apple for making that easy. Their Migration Assistant is slow, but still eases much of the pain of migration.

rbanffy 17y ago

> it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. No. If you are asking for updates and fixes, you are doing it wrong. It should be automated, because you shouldn't have to bother to remember pressing a button. I set up my mother with a Linux box and sure as hell I don't count on her pressing buttons without some prompting. > As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day. If you have a defective library that's bundled in five apps and needs fixing, you will have five upgrades instead of one. And, possibly, an OS update and a reboot. But only if you are lucky and the publishers of the five programs are paying attention. Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one.

randallsquared 17y ago
"Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one." Actually, I prefer the five. When you have a shared library, and bugs are fixed, applications that use the library might well break. Shared libraries mean that either applications are at risk of completely failing to work, or that the library developers have to flag the bugfix as a new version to avoid that. Either way, incompatible bugfixes require application updates anyway, so you might as well avoid the breakage and use static libraries. It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage, and that's just not a problem any more. Down with shared libraries and dependency hell, I say! ;)
- senko 17y ago
  > It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage. Shared libraries are shared in memory too. If you have 5 separate copies of libfoo and you start up applications using them, you'll have 5 copies of libfoo in memory too. And memory is much scarcer resource than disk space.
  - AlisdairO 17y ago
    True, although code memory space consumption is not the issue it once was. The consumption of most of the big hogs (web browsers, word processors, etc) is data-related.
    - windsurfer 17y ago
      Xulrunner takes 40 megs on a good day...
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        So, pretty trivial, except on mobile, you agree?

randallsquared 17y ago

"As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day." Ubuntu is essentially the same in that; some weeks I come home from work to see the "Update Manager" floating in the background two or three times. :)