4 ms·

That's because most mac users fall to the well-crafted publicity of Homebrew, and remain ignorant about the better https://www.macports.org/ https://www.macport

That's because most mac users fall to the well-crafted publicity of Homebrew, and remain ignorant about the better https://www.macports.org/ https://www.macports.org/ package management system. MacPorts was inspired by the FreeBSD Ports Collection, is created by Apple engineers, used by Apple internally, is unix-y and has more packages than Homebrew. (But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have).

brimble 4y ago
I started as a MacPorts user, and moved because it managed to break itself about quarterly over the two years or so that I used it, usually in some way weird enough that it was easier to just remove all my packages (rm the whole directory) and start over than try to fix it. HomeBrew's done that zero times for me, in about eight years. I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debian and Ubuntu), and MacPorts, plus put in a smaller amount of time with several others. HomeBrew is, overall, my favorite. [EDIT] And this in particular: > But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used. AFAIK only Arch and Portage even come close. [EDIT] Downvoted for countering someone's passive-aggressive insult ("people who don't like the software I do must be gullible morons, it can't be that they have good reasons") with my own, honest anecdote, in a respectful tone. I know, I know, don't complain about DVs, but man HN, sometimes....
- rbanffy 4y ago
  I had exactly the opposite experience. Homebrew chewed up my computer a couple times back when it installed everything alongside OS files. The only sane way to get rid of it was to reinstall the OS.
  - brimble 4y ago
    > back when it installed everything alongside OS files. Whoa—I don't recall it ever doing that. Some time before ~2012?
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      Not sure. It made the system binary folders user writable. It stopped doing that when Apple forced them by adding some extra security measures around /usr/bin.
      - brimble 4y ago
        Man, that blows. I find the current model (and only one I can remember? Maybe I did use it when it worked that way, and just didn't realize it) of keeping all user packages totally separate from the core system and just linking them in better and safer than what e.g. most Linux package managers do—now that I'm used to my package manager not really being able to mess up my base system, I wish all the rest worked that way, too :-/
    - astrange 4y ago
      Since the start Homebrew installed in /usr/local instead of a dedicated directory (which it now does); it literally always had a worse design than the earlier systems Fink and MacPorts. The only reason people used it is that it was written in Ruby and at the time there was a generation of new Rails developers that for some reason only wanted to use tools written in Ruby.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  > HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used ... Not that I doubt your claim but MacPorts has more packages than Homebrew: Homebrew - around 6031 packages (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/ https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/) MacPorts - 29,128 packages (https://ports.macports.org/ https://ports.macports.org/) (Ofcourse, more doesn't imply it has all the newer and / or popular packages or that Homebrew has the same packages as in MacPorts, which could explain your experience).
rbanffy 4y ago
I second that. MacPorts is amazing and makes the Mac a very decent Unix environment.

brimble 4y ago

I started as a MacPorts user, and moved because it managed to break itself about quarterly over the two years or so that I used it, usually in some way weird enough that it was easier to just remove all my packages (rm the whole directory) and start over than try to fix it. HomeBrew's done that zero times for me, in about eight years. I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debian and Ubuntu), and MacPorts, plus put in a smaller amount of time with several others. HomeBrew is, overall, my favorite. [EDIT] And this in particular: > But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used. AFAIK only Arch and Portage even come close. [EDIT] Downvoted for countering someone's passive-aggressive insult ("people who don't like the software I do must be gullible morons, it can't be that they have good reasons") with my own, honest anecdote, in a respectful tone. I know, I know, don't complain about DVs, but man HN, sometimes....

rbanffy 4y ago
I had exactly the opposite experience. Homebrew chewed up my computer a couple times back when it installed everything alongside OS files. The only sane way to get rid of it was to reinstall the OS.
- brimble 4y ago
  > back when it installed everything alongside OS files. Whoa—I don't recall it ever doing that. Some time before ~2012?
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    Not sure. It made the system binary folders user writable. It stopped doing that when Apple forced them by adding some extra security measures around /usr/bin.
    - brimble 4y ago
      Man, that blows. I find the current model (and only one I can remember? Maybe I did use it when it worked that way, and just didn't realize it) of keeping all user packages totally separate from the core system and just linking them in better and safer than what e.g. most Linux package managers do—now that I'm used to my package manager not really being able to mess up my base system, I wish all the rest worked that way, too :-/
  - astrange 4y ago
    Since the start Homebrew installed in /usr/local instead of a dedicated directory (which it now does); it literally always had a worse design than the earlier systems Fink and MacPorts. The only reason people used it is that it was written in Ruby and at the time there was a generation of new Rails developers that for some reason only wanted to use tools written in Ruby.
webmobdev 4y ago
> HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used ... Not that I doubt your claim but MacPorts has more packages than Homebrew: Homebrew - around 6031 packages (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/ https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/) MacPorts - 29,128 packages (https://ports.macports.org/ https://ports.macports.org/) (Ofcourse, more doesn't imply it has all the newer and / or popular packages or that Homebrew has the same packages as in MacPorts, which could explain your experience).

rbanffy 4y ago

I second that. MacPorts is amazing and makes the Mac a very decent Unix environment.