7 ms·

I think this is great, but at the same time, auto-installing homebrew ought to be an option (perhaps enabled by default) when installing the “XCode command line

I think this is great, but at the same time, auto-installing homebrew ought to be an option (perhaps enabled by default) when installing the “XCode command line tools”. Better yet, offer a “developer setup” app that sets up the command line tools, homebrew, iTerm2, updated bash/zsh, and more. Apple would do best to pave the cow paths developers have already worn into macOS, especially when it comes to command line utilities. A dev setup app would just make it quicker/simpler and pave the way for newbies to get into development.

jarcane 7y ago
Homebrew is not the only package provider for MacOS.
- reikonomusha 7y ago
  Would Apple be in the wrong simply being opinionated about using Homebrew?
  - hasahmed 7y ago
    Yes
    - csomar 7y ago
      I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted. I'd not like it if Apple will opinion-ate and make any package manager a default. Package managers are for software developers. They are comfortable installing them on their own.
      - kzzzznot 7y ago
        I expect he’s getting downvoted because he doesn’t offer any reasoning (or substance at all) along with his opinion.
        csomar 7y ago
        The reasoning was in the question itself. Sometimes a prompt answer is a better one.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    Yes, because Homebrew's practice of installing packages runs contrary to the requirements of a multi-user system.
  - wyufro 7y ago
    MacPorts is sponsored by Apple, or at least used to be.
    - anentropic 7y ago
      TBH it's weird they haven't built their own
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        They did: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory
    - raimue 7y ago
      MacPorts was originally started as DarwinPorts as part of the OpenDarwin initiative at Apple [1]. Apple continued to sponsor MacPorts by providing hosting of website, repository, and build servers at Mac OS forge [2] until it closed back in 2016. The project then moved to GitHub and their own servers. [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory [2] https://www.macosforge.org/ https://www.macosforge.org/
frou_dh 7y ago
I reject the persistent meme that iTerm2 is somehow essential. Apple do a great job with the builtin Terminal.app
- wyufro 7y ago
  Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. As well as the built in timing of commands, jump to previous prompt, double click selects matching parentheses, etc. it's those little details.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. Not sure what you mean here, but I don't think that's something you don't get, or can't get, on Terminal.app. In fact, that's the default...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      If you have a command that doesn't print a new line, the prompt normally ends up on the same line as the output of the last command. iTerm can "fix" this.
      - skohan 7y ago
        See this is where I would rather have my terminal obey the program rather than imposing its own behavior. IMO a good terminal should be extremely minimal, and anything extra should be opt-in.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        This is an option that you can enable. It's not on by default.
        snazz 7y ago
        Don’t shells usually fix this? I know that Fish at least includes a little Unicode “return” arrow when it appends a newline.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
I'm not a big fan of Homebrew or Macports myself, they both feel kinda hacky. Wherever possible I prefer installation packages from the official site. I think / hope Apple will do their own package system, maybe as part of the app store, for developer tooling like that. If only for improved security.
Traster 7y ago
I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? iTerm2 is more popular now, but 5 years down the line when someone else has come up with a iTerm2 replacement how is Apple meant to decide to switch? Where does Apple draw the line on which tools to add and which to leave out? It sounds like what you're really asking for is something like Ninite for mac, which I think frankly is safer to stay as a 3rd party thing, rather than Apple getting super-involved in choices that are going to be very user taste specific.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? Because iTerm2 is an excellent Mac app? I don't understand your aversion to favoring one tool over another: macOS itself is a tool that I prefer to use over Linux because it's nicer, just as iTerm2 is nicer than Alacritty.
- skohan 7y ago
  Yeah I don't see the need for any of this to be provided by Apple. I want the platform I'm working on to be minimal and agnostic, and let me worry about what tools I'm using and how. If there's really demand for some kind of base developer toolkit, why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you?
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you? Because a potentially interested 4th grader likely won't ever know such a thing exists. And even if she did, the teacher likely won't let her download and install it from the internet. But if she asks for permission to run a "Install Command Line Tools" app in /Applications/Utilities/ and check the "Install homebrew" option (or "Install MacPorts" - I really don't care either way... perhaps provide options for both), that's far more likely to get a "yes".
    - 7y ago
pmilla1606 7y ago
I know this isn't exactly what you're talking about but I've found it invaluable: https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles It's a script that installs all kinds of useful stuff and sets some - in my opinion - nice options. I just recently started a new job and I had a brand new Macbook Pro up and running (as in: ready to start working) in less than 30 minutes. A good tip is to fork it and modify it to your liking. At a new computer you can then just pull down your version and install away. The only default that's missing is Sublime Text.
- teach 7y ago
  So the ironic part is this script would no longer work after these deprecations because installing Homebrew requires a Ruby interpreter[0]. Obviously these things are fixable but a whole lot of people are going to have to do a lot of work to workaround having _no_ scripting languages installed by default on a fresh Mac. [0]: https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L169 https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh...
  - zimpenfish 7y ago
    Looks like they're ahead of this problem already. https://twitter.com/zbeekman/status/1136250914539483136 https://twitter.com/zbeekman/status/1136250914539483136 > Once Homebrew no longer has to support a macOS with a system ruby, we can even run with a considerably more up-to-date version, modulo concerns for supporting older linux(brew) OSes. We have a portable ruby that we can use to bootstrap things.

jarcane 7y ago

Homebrew is not the only package provider for MacOS.

reikonomusha 7y ago
Would Apple be in the wrong simply being opinionated about using Homebrew?
- hasahmed 7y ago
  Yes
  - csomar 7y ago
    I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted. I'd not like it if Apple will opinion-ate and make any package manager a default. Package managers are for software developers. They are comfortable installing them on their own.
    - kzzzznot 7y ago
      I expect he’s getting downvoted because he doesn’t offer any reasoning (or substance at all) along with his opinion.
      - csomar 7y ago
        The reasoning was in the question itself. Sometimes a prompt answer is a better one.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  Yes, because Homebrew's practice of installing packages runs contrary to the requirements of a multi-user system.
- wyufro 7y ago
  MacPorts is sponsored by Apple, or at least used to be.
  - anentropic 7y ago
    TBH it's weird they haven't built their own
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      They did: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory
  - raimue 7y ago
    MacPorts was originally started as DarwinPorts as part of the OpenDarwin initiative at Apple [1]. Apple continued to sponsor MacPorts by providing hosting of website, repository, and build servers at Mac OS forge [2] until it closed back in 2016. The project then moved to GitHub and their own servers. [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsHistory [2] https://www.macosforge.org/ https://www.macosforge.org/

frou_dh 7y ago

I reject the persistent meme that iTerm2 is somehow essential. Apple do a great job with the builtin Terminal.app

wyufro 7y ago
Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. As well as the built in timing of commands, jump to previous prompt, double click selects matching parentheses, etc. it's those little details.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. Not sure what you mean here, but I don't think that's something you don't get, or can't get, on Terminal.app. In fact, that's the default...
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    If you have a command that doesn't print a new line, the prompt normally ends up on the same line as the output of the last command. iTerm can "fix" this.
    - skohan 7y ago
      See this is where I would rather have my terminal obey the program rather than imposing its own behavior. IMO a good terminal should be extremely minimal, and anything extra should be opt-in.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        This is an option that you can enable. It's not on by default.
      - snazz 7y ago
        Don’t shells usually fix this? I know that Fish at least includes a little Unicode “return” arrow when it appends a newline.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

I'm not a big fan of Homebrew or Macports myself, they both feel kinda hacky. Wherever possible I prefer installation packages from the official site. I think / hope Apple will do their own package system, maybe as part of the app store, for developer tooling like that. If only for improved security.

Traster 7y ago

I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? iTerm2 is more popular now, but 5 years down the line when someone else has come up with a iTerm2 replacement how is Apple meant to decide to switch? Where does Apple draw the line on which tools to add and which to leave out? It sounds like what you're really asking for is something like Ninite for mac, which I think frankly is safer to stay as a 3rd party thing, rather than Apple getting super-involved in choices that are going to be very user taste specific.

saagarjha 7y ago
> I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? Because iTerm2 is an excellent Mac app? I don't understand your aversion to favoring one tool over another: macOS itself is a tool that I prefer to use over Linux because it's nicer, just as iTerm2 is nicer than Alacritty.
skohan 7y ago
Yeah I don't see the need for any of this to be provided by Apple. I want the platform I'm working on to be minimal and agnostic, and let me worry about what tools I'm using and how. If there's really demand for some kind of base developer toolkit, why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you?
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  > why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you? Because a potentially interested 4th grader likely won't ever know such a thing exists. And even if she did, the teacher likely won't let her download and install it from the internet. But if she asks for permission to run a "Install Command Line Tools" app in /Applications/Utilities/ and check the "Install homebrew" option (or "Install MacPorts" - I really don't care either way... perhaps provide options for both), that's far more likely to get a "yes".
  - 7y ago

pmilla1606 7y ago

I know this isn't exactly what you're talking about but I've found it invaluable: https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles It's a script that installs all kinds of useful stuff and sets some - in my opinion - nice options. I just recently started a new job and I had a brand new Macbook Pro up and running (as in: ready to start working) in less than 30 minutes. A good tip is to fork it and modify it to your liking. At a new computer you can then just pull down your version and install away. The only default that's missing is Sublime Text.

teach 7y ago
So the ironic part is this script would no longer work after these deprecations because installing Homebrew requires a Ruby interpreter[0]. Obviously these things are fixable but a whole lot of people are going to have to do a lot of work to workaround having _no_ scripting languages installed by default on a fresh Mac. [0]: https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L169 https://github.com/atomantic/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh...
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  Looks like they're ahead of this problem already. https://twitter.com/zbeekman/status/1136250914539483136 https://twitter.com/zbeekman/status/1136250914539483136 > Once Homebrew no longer has to support a macOS with a system ruby, we can even run with a considerably more up-to-date version, modulo concerns for supporting older linux(brew) OSes. We have a portable ruby that we can use to bootstrap things.