4 ms·

How is that better than a pm specifically designed for Mac?

by cutler 6y ago

Benjamin_Dobell 6y ago
I use Homebrew, and am genuinely appreciative of the amount of effort all the contributors have put in. However, as far as package managers go, it's kind of awful. Homebrew excels as a mechanism to install the latest software, if you don't care about breaking things. However, traditionally a package manager's job is to ensure that if you've installed something, it'll continue to run. If you've ever updated readline via Homebrew, you can pretty much just watch everything burn. If you've ever tried to use an old version of Postgres, good luck. Particularly if you're wanting to mix and match versions of PostGIS. If you're running an old version of macOS, you're out in the cold. Although, I must admit, recently this seems to be handled much better.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  Also any random operation can take 20 minutes to complete if you haven't used brew in a while.
  - upbeat_general 6y ago
    You can disable this but I agree, I hate it. This comment actually just spurred me to find this (https://gist.github.com/jb510/99f12b1ac70f1cf8b780 https://gist.github.com/jb510/99f12b1ac70f1cf8b780) which may fix the issue of forgetting to manually update.
    - indemnity 6y ago
      I understand why they did it, but it’s super annoying. Given the intervals between running Homebrew, you just know it’s going to spin for a minute or two updating every damn time you try to use it, usually when you want something installed fast.
- cutler 6y ago
  Have you tried MacPorts?
  - Benjamin_Dobell 6y ago
    Not in about 8 years. I do most of my development in Docker these days so tend to make use of Linux package managers.
    - cutler 6y ago
      MacPorts has been virtually flawless for me in the last 16 years. Worth a try.
SkyMarshal 6y ago
Are you talking about Homerew or MacPorts?
abathur 6y ago
It probably depends on what you want? If you like treating your Mac like a very MacMacMac pet, a pm designed for Mac is probably better. If you'd like to treat your Mac like UnixMac livestock, you probably want a cross-platform pm. Using Nix means the core of my dev needs are met by config shared between my NixOS and macOS systems, with some idiomatic unshareable bits around the edges. (I don't want to trivialize the gaps or over-sell Nix here. Nix forms a foundation for accomplishing this, but I do still have non-trivial bootstrap scripts for macOS.)

How is that better than a pm specifically designed for Mac?

by cutler 6y ago

How is that better than a pm specifically designed for Mac?

I use Homebrew, and am genuinely appreciative of the amount of effort all the contributors have put in. However, as far as package managers go, it's kind of awful. Homebrew excels as a mechanism to install the latest software, if you don't care about breaking things. However, traditionally a package manager's job is to ensure that if you've installed something, it'll continue to run. If you've ever updated readline via Homebrew, you can pretty much just watch everything burn. If you've ever tried to use an old version of Postgres, good luck. Particularly if you're wanting to mix and match versions of PostGIS. If you're running an old version of macOS, you're out in the cold. Although, I must admit, recently this seems to be handled much better.

faitswulff 6y ago
Also any random operation can take 20 minutes to complete if you haven't used brew in a while.
- upbeat_general 6y ago
  You can disable this but I agree, I hate it. This comment actually just spurred me to find this (https://gist.github.com/jb510/99f12b1ac70f1cf8b780 https://gist.github.com/jb510/99f12b1ac70f1cf8b780) which may fix the issue of forgetting to manually update.
  - indemnity 6y ago
    I understand why they did it, but it’s super annoying. Given the intervals between running Homebrew, you just know it’s going to spin for a minute or two updating every damn time you try to use it, usually when you want something installed fast.
cutler 6y ago
Have you tried MacPorts?
- Benjamin_Dobell 6y ago
  Not in about 8 years. I do most of my development in Docker these days so tend to make use of Linux package managers.
  - cutler 6y ago
    MacPorts has been virtually flawless for me in the last 16 years. Worth a try.

SkyMarshal 6y ago

Are you talking about Homerew or MacPorts?

abathur 6y ago

It probably depends on what you want? If you like treating your Mac like a very MacMacMac pet, a pm designed for Mac is probably better. If you'd like to treat your Mac like UnixMac livestock, you probably want a cross-platform pm. Using Nix means the core of my dev needs are met by config shared between my NixOS and macOS systems, with some idiomatic unshareable bits around the edges. (I don't want to trivialize the gaps or over-sell Nix here. Nix forms a foundation for accomplishing this, but I do still have non-trivial bootstrap scripts for macOS.)