- We are going to provide binaries for the CC toolchain. I meant binary packages, not a bootstrap tool chain. - We can't wait for Lion, nor expect everyone to

- We are going to provide binaries for the CC toolchain. I meant binary packages, not a bootstrap tool chain. - We can't wait for Lion, nor expect everyone to use Lion. Xcode3 is still available. Xcode4 is not yet mandatory. - Headers is a good point It's an insurmountable obstacle, unless you plan on independently generating your own replacement headers (which is possible, but is going to be a world of pain). - GCC is not the default /usr/bin/cc for Xcode4 Yes, Apple is investing heavily in moving everything to LLVM/clang in Lion (... and, as such, with Xcode4), but even in Xcode4 the default /usr/bin/gcc and iOS compiler is llvm-gcc4.2, not clang. Additionally, you'll likely find it more difficult to track clang over GCC, as Apple is less explicitly about matching up their custom branches to actual releases as shipped with Xcode. - Macports needs Xcode too. My point was that this demonstrates why working with a vendor as capricious[1] as Apple often requires one to carve out their own niche of stable dependencies, and most of what you've often claimed sets homebrew apart[2] will be gradually worn away as you have to deal with Apple major releases. That said, I hope MacPorts just starts using their support for binary packaging of ports (port archives). [1] They're not really capricious, so much as focus on the consumer, and not on developers building large port systems. [2] I'm reminded of this line-by-line assessment: http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=872072 http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=872072