4 ms·

Yes back in the day whenever I used php it never had all the modules I wanted. Not a big miss. Brew install php

user3939382 5y ago
I guess this is a more niche version of tabs vs spaces, vi vs emacs, etc, but I’m surprised that HN (maybe the dev community in general?) mentions and seems to favor homebrew so much over Macports. I’ve always used the latter, seldom had any problem with it, and found the community great when I did. I prefer it because it installs everything related to it in its own directory totally separate from the default OS, in one place. I find that more organized. There’s been times where there was no homebrew equivalent for a macports package. Also I remember hearing (if I’m not mistaken) that macports was used more internally at Apple(?) In any case I’m surprised it’s not more 50/50. It seems more like 95% of macos package manager mentions are homebrew.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  MacPorts got a lot of contributions from Apple people over the years, but I would be surprised if it was more popular even inside Apple these days.
- lucideer 5y ago
  > I’m surprised that HN (maybe the dev community in general?) mentions and seems to favor homebrew so much over Macports. I'm surprised that you're surprised. I use Macports but almost everything I encounter gives Homebrew install instructions up front (Macports is rarely mentioned, even if there is a port available). Additionally, I find that while the docs for advanced Homebrew use are poor, they do at least have the basic everyday usage well-documented up-front. Macports approach of providing long, detailed & comprehensive contributor-oriented API docs and almost nothing simple & accessible for daily users makes it really intimidating for new users trialling it.
- lenkite 5y ago
  Won't homebrew be need to be re-written in a compiled language now and embed a ruby interpreter after Apple removes scripting languages (except Perl) ?
  - astrange 5y ago
    Then people can go back to Fink, which existed before Homebrew (and MacPorts) and actually worked better. Literally the only reason people moved to Homebrew is that a bunch of Ruby on Rails developers bought Macs and Homebrew was written in Ruby while Fink was Perl scripts over dpkg.
- akho 5y ago
  I’m more surprised than you are. Nix is rarely mentioned at all, despite being better in most ways.
- vehemenz 5y ago
  I looked on MacPorts for some of the software I use, but none of it is not available there. Does it only have packages for open-source, command line applications? If so, it's not going to compete with Homebrew.

I guess this is a more niche version of tabs vs spaces, vi vs emacs, etc, but I’m surprised that HN (maybe the dev community in general?) mentions and seems to favor homebrew so much over Macports. I’ve always used the latter, seldom had any problem with it, and found the community great when I did. I prefer it because it installs everything related to it in its own directory totally separate from the default OS, in one place. I find that more organized. There’s been times where there was no homebrew equivalent for a macports package. Also I remember hearing (if I’m not mistaken) that macports was used more internally at Apple(?) In any case I’m surprised it’s not more 50/50. It seems more like 95% of macos package manager mentions are homebrew.

saagarjha 5y ago
MacPorts got a lot of contributions from Apple people over the years, but I would be surprised if it was more popular even inside Apple these days.
lucideer 5y ago
> I’m surprised that HN (maybe the dev community in general?) mentions and seems to favor homebrew so much over Macports. I'm surprised that you're surprised. I use Macports but almost everything I encounter gives Homebrew install instructions up front (Macports is rarely mentioned, even if there is a port available). Additionally, I find that while the docs for advanced Homebrew use are poor, they do at least have the basic everyday usage well-documented up-front. Macports approach of providing long, detailed & comprehensive contributor-oriented API docs and almost nothing simple & accessible for daily users makes it really intimidating for new users trialling it.
lenkite 5y ago
Won't homebrew be need to be re-written in a compiled language now and embed a ruby interpreter after Apple removes scripting languages (except Perl) ?
- astrange 5y ago
  Then people can go back to Fink, which existed before Homebrew (and MacPorts) and actually worked better. Literally the only reason people moved to Homebrew is that a bunch of Ruby on Rails developers bought Macs and Homebrew was written in Ruby while Fink was Perl scripts over dpkg.
akho 5y ago
I’m more surprised than you are. Nix is rarely mentioned at all, despite being better in most ways.
vehemenz 5y ago
I looked on MacPorts for some of the software I use, but none of it is not available there. Does it only have packages for open-source, command line applications? If so, it's not going to compete with Homebrew.