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It's for this very reason that I'm still one of those old-school guys who still uses MacPorts. I was horrified to see this, and in my brief time using it, it ac

by rwl4 10y ago

It's for this very reason that I'm still one of those old-school guys who still uses MacPorts. I was horrified to see this, and in my brief time using it, it actually caused me real problems, so I went back.

davb 10y ago
I switched to MacPorts following the Google Analytics debacle [1] and how it was handled [2]. I had this expectation that MacPorts would be backwards and full of ancient packages but it's not - it's fantastic! The package repository is really good, the project itself is stable and it doesn't have a default-on analytics component aggregating my package data at Google. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720 [2] https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/142 https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/142
- RodgerTheGreat 10y ago
  Wow. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I recently got a new mac and I decided to give brew a spin as my package manager. I was unimpressed with many aspects of the experience- for example, getting weird snarky messages and incorrect advice when I attempted to install texlive- but this seals it. Back to Macports it is. I'll be sure to tell others about this.
  - moridin007 10y ago
    Been using Brew for as long as i can remember. Most of the message usually require a `brew doctor` or `brew update` command which completely fixes the issue. And i cant even remember the last time i had to do that.. When they brought in brew cask i was completely blown away and i use brew exclusively for installing almost everything on my mac. I tried macports at first, but bailed out of that after i shot myself in the foot inside the hour. Switched to brew and have never looked back since.
    - beachstartup 10y ago
      i must be the only person on earth that can't get brew to work right. every so often i'll try to install something with brew, and it just won't work. the last thing i'm trying to do on planet earth is spend 30 minutes debugging a packager on my workstation (as opposed to on servers, where i do this literally all day long), so i just don't bother.
  - sigzero 10y ago
    I have never had a problem with homebrew. I think some people like one or the other better as a preference though.
- skykooler 10y ago
  Last time I used Macports, the installation procedure took about six hours of compiling all packages from source (granted, that was an Atom processor). Does it support binary packages now?
  - amake 10y ago
    Yes.
  - raimue 10y ago
    Yes, official binary archives are available since MacPorts 2.0 in 2011. Due to restrictions by the various software licenses not all are distributable, though.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  > following the Google Analytics debacle I didn't even realize Homebrew was sending my info to Google Analytics :(. I am a huge fan of Homebrew, but they really should make this opt-in vs automatic by default. Edit: To opt out (the second line is just for confirmation): $ brew analytics off $ brew analytics
- petre 10y ago
  Why would anoyone deliberately bother writing google analytics code in homebrew is beyond me. It should be optin or someone who is sufficiently pissed off could fork it and remove the offending code.
  - davb 10y ago
    The devs' justification was that if it was opt-in, most people wouldn't do it. They thought it better to turn it on and force users to go manually disable it. I disagreed in the GitHub issue about this. Debian's Popcorn (package popularity analytics) is opt-in - a choice on install that defaults to "off". That would be the perfect solution. Ultimately those who agreed with me were told that the decision was made and there would be no further discussion - the issue was closed and locked.
- rcarmo 10y ago
  was it that hard to just, you know, type "brew analytics off"? Or was there more to that decision?
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    I've found that a lot of people here in HN and Reddit are really passionate about not being tracked, so even if it was as easy as one command, the fact that Homebrew did it at all is enough to make some people not want to use it. Nothing wrong with that viewpoint, but I just disabled it and moved on to enjoying pretty good software.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to disable. The problem is that it doesn't ask first, or even tell you what it's doing. OK, now that I know about it, I can turn it off, but how do I know they won't do something similarly ugly in a future version?
      - mikemcquaid 10y ago
        We do tell you about it before we start recording any analytics.
        bangonkeyboard 10y ago
        You do now, after people noticed what you were doing. You didn't then, when the GA integration was originally snuck in.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    Privacy violations and user tracking should always be opt-in not opt-out. If nobody opts in, one should rationalize why users may not want to be tracked or have their privacy violated and question whether making it opt-out is a good decision and respectful of their users.
  - waterphone 10y ago
kbutler 10y ago
I almost went the other way (from ports to brew) because of the complex manual procedure required to fix ports when you upgrade the OS: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration After going through the migration, it isn't that bad, but it was surprising (horrifying?) to me that ports was completely broken after an OS upgrade.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- raimue 10y ago
  MacPorts dev here. Problems can arise when some ports have local patches for specific versions of macOS. This might work at first, but could lead to build failures or other problems later. Some ports also hardcode the OS version into their binaries. The simple way to prevent this kind of stuff is to rebuild all ports for the new platform. Probably there would be room for improvement, but there is only little interest by contributors. This only happens once a year and after everybody went through it, they quickly loose interest in contributing anything better for the migration process.

by rwl4 10y ago

davb 10y ago

I switched to MacPorts following the Google Analytics debacle [1] and how it was handled [2]. I had this expectation that MacPorts would be backwards and full of ancient packages but it's not - it's fantastic! The package repository is really good, the project itself is stable and it doesn't have a default-on analytics component aggregating my package data at Google. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720 [2] https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/142 https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/142

RodgerTheGreat 10y ago
Wow. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I recently got a new mac and I decided to give brew a spin as my package manager. I was unimpressed with many aspects of the experience- for example, getting weird snarky messages and incorrect advice when I attempted to install texlive- but this seals it. Back to Macports it is. I'll be sure to tell others about this.
- moridin007 10y ago
  Been using Brew for as long as i can remember. Most of the message usually require a `brew doctor` or `brew update` command which completely fixes the issue. And i cant even remember the last time i had to do that.. When they brought in brew cask i was completely blown away and i use brew exclusively for installing almost everything on my mac. I tried macports at first, but bailed out of that after i shot myself in the foot inside the hour. Switched to brew and have never looked back since.
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    i must be the only person on earth that can't get brew to work right. every so often i'll try to install something with brew, and it just won't work. the last thing i'm trying to do on planet earth is spend 30 minutes debugging a packager on my workstation (as opposed to on servers, where i do this literally all day long), so i just don't bother.
- sigzero 10y ago
  I have never had a problem with homebrew. I think some people like one or the other better as a preference though.
skykooler 10y ago
Last time I used Macports, the installation procedure took about six hours of compiling all packages from source (granted, that was an Atom processor). Does it support binary packages now?
- amake 10y ago
  Yes.
- raimue 10y ago
  Yes, official binary archives are available since MacPorts 2.0 in 2011. Due to restrictions by the various software licenses not all are distributable, though.
tedmiston 10y ago
> following the Google Analytics debacle I didn't even realize Homebrew was sending my info to Google Analytics :(. I am a huge fan of Homebrew, but they really should make this opt-in vs automatic by default. Edit: To opt out (the second line is just for confirmation): $ brew analytics off $ brew analytics
petre 10y ago
Why would anoyone deliberately bother writing google analytics code in homebrew is beyond me. It should be optin or someone who is sufficiently pissed off could fork it and remove the offending code.
- davb 10y ago
  The devs' justification was that if it was opt-in, most people wouldn't do it. They thought it better to turn it on and force users to go manually disable it. I disagreed in the GitHub issue about this. Debian's Popcorn (package popularity analytics) is opt-in - a choice on install that defaults to "off". That would be the perfect solution. Ultimately those who agreed with me were told that the decision was made and there would be no further discussion - the issue was closed and locked.
rcarmo 10y ago
was it that hard to just, you know, type "brew analytics off"? Or was there more to that decision?
- sotojuan 10y ago
  I've found that a lot of people here in HN and Reddit are really passionate about not being tracked, so even if it was as easy as one command, the fact that Homebrew did it at all is enough to make some people not want to use it. Nothing wrong with that viewpoint, but I just disabled it and moved on to enjoying pretty good software.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to disable. The problem is that it doesn't ask first, or even tell you what it's doing. OK, now that I know about it, I can turn it off, but how do I know they won't do something similarly ugly in a future version?
    - mikemcquaid 10y ago
      We do tell you about it before we start recording any analytics.
      - bangonkeyboard 10y ago
        You do now, after people noticed what you were doing. You didn't then, when the GA integration was originally snuck in.
- Nadya 10y ago
  Privacy violations and user tracking should always be opt-in not opt-out. If nobody opts in, one should rationalize why users may not want to be tracked or have their privacy violated and question whether making it opt-out is a good decision and respectful of their users.
- waterphone 10y ago

kbutler 10y ago

I almost went the other way (from ports to brew) because of the complex manual procedure required to fix ports when you upgrade the OS: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration After going through the migration, it isn't that bad, but it was surprising (horrifying?) to me that ports was completely broken after an OS upgrade.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
raimue 10y ago
MacPorts dev here. Problems can arise when some ports have local patches for specific versions of macOS. This might work at first, but could lead to build failures or other problems later. Some ports also hardcode the OS version into their binaries. The simple way to prevent this kind of stuff is to rebuild all ports for the new platform. Probably there would be room for improvement, but there is only little interest by contributors. This only happens once a year and after everybody went through it, they quickly loose interest in contributing anything better for the migration process.