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I abandoned brew for asdf. And then a new coworker introduced nix. The kind of issues I get with brew just isn’t there when using nix. I still don’t know how

by hosh 4y ago

I abandoned brew for asdf. And then a new coworker introduced nix. The kind of issues I get with brew just isn’t there when using nix. I still don’t know how to write nix expressions, but I don’t really see any reason to go back to using brew.

teg4n_ 4y ago
What does asdf have to do with package management? It’s only a version manager as far as I know and one of the suggested ways to install asdf is to install it with brew
- hosh 4y ago
  That's a pretty narrow idea of a "package manager" if you don't consider a version manager to also be a kind of package manager. It's more accurate to say that asdf does not comprehensively provide as many software that brew provides, and asdf does not manage library dependencies. What asdf does that brew is very crappy at is being able to run things in isolation from the home directory, and being able to run specific versions of a software. asdf installs things in the home directory by default, and so for the software it does have in its repos, it was something I use instead of brew. Besides, you missed the part I wrote about nix. Even with a higher learning curve, nix does the things brew and asdf don't do well. It provides package management, library dependency management, can run things from the home directory, can have multiple versions running, and works with direnv to autoload the correct software based on the current directory.
gonehome 4y ago
I’m 0 for 2 so far trying to get stuff built with nix working on an M1 machine (for open source projects that use it). Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but my personal experience with it so far has been bad.
- hosh 4y ago
  Same here, though my coworker got it working on an M1. I use a cloud Linux box and nix has been working great there.
ravenstine 4y ago
asdf is an awesome tool, but isn't it isn't a replacement for Homebrew. It is in the sense of installing and managing versions of programming languages, but Homebrew is more than that. You can't run `asdf install vs-code`, for example, unless you overload its functionality with a custom plugin.
- hosh 4y ago
  I think you missed the part about nix.
fredoliveira 4y ago
It doesn't sound to me like you were using brew as brew was intended to be used, if you are able to replace it with asdf. Asdf is extensible, but it doesn't have any kind of way to replace casks, or system package management. It is fine for managing js/ruby/etc environments, but that's it.
- hosh 4y ago
  You missed the part where I said I switched to nix. I don't care about casks or system package management. My use-case requires specific versions of tools, maybe GNU coreutils, and limped along with glibc or openssl, and that's about it. What asdf did not provide, Docker containers did. Until nix.
ohCh6zos 4y ago
No worries if you don't know, but how hard is it to get Nix setup on macOS?
- mdaniel 4y ago
  A recent tooling announcement <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600821> that uses nix under the hood finally got me to look further into it and while I know this isn't exactly what you asked, looking at their uninstall instructions <https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-binary.html#macos https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-...> leads me to believe ... it's probably not a great fit. I recognize that I'm probably more skeptical than most about "curl into bash" but if one needs to run that many sudo commands plus whatever "dscl" does in order to change your mind, that tool is not for me

by hosh 4y ago

teg4n_ 4y ago

What does asdf have to do with package management? It’s only a version manager as far as I know and one of the suggested ways to install asdf is to install it with brew

hosh 4y ago
That's a pretty narrow idea of a "package manager" if you don't consider a version manager to also be a kind of package manager. It's more accurate to say that asdf does not comprehensively provide as many software that brew provides, and asdf does not manage library dependencies. What asdf does that brew is very crappy at is being able to run things in isolation from the home directory, and being able to run specific versions of a software. asdf installs things in the home directory by default, and so for the software it does have in its repos, it was something I use instead of brew. Besides, you missed the part I wrote about nix. Even with a higher learning curve, nix does the things brew and asdf don't do well. It provides package management, library dependency management, can run things from the home directory, can have multiple versions running, and works with direnv to autoload the correct software based on the current directory.

gonehome 4y ago

I’m 0 for 2 so far trying to get stuff built with nix working on an M1 machine (for open source projects that use it). Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but my personal experience with it so far has been bad.

hosh 4y ago
Same here, though my coworker got it working on an M1. I use a cloud Linux box and nix has been working great there.

ravenstine 4y ago

asdf is an awesome tool, but isn't it isn't a replacement for Homebrew. It is in the sense of installing and managing versions of programming languages, but Homebrew is more than that. You can't run `asdf install vs-code`, for example, unless you overload its functionality with a custom plugin.

hosh 4y ago
I think you missed the part about nix.

fredoliveira 4y ago

It doesn't sound to me like you were using brew as brew was intended to be used, if you are able to replace it with asdf. Asdf is extensible, but it doesn't have any kind of way to replace casks, or system package management. It is fine for managing js/ruby/etc environments, but that's it.

hosh 4y ago
You missed the part where I said I switched to nix. I don't care about casks or system package management. My use-case requires specific versions of tools, maybe GNU coreutils, and limped along with glibc or openssl, and that's about it. What asdf did not provide, Docker containers did. Until nix.

ohCh6zos 4y ago

No worries if you don't know, but how hard is it to get Nix setup on macOS?

mdaniel 4y ago
A recent tooling announcement <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600821> that uses nix under the hood finally got me to look further into it and while I know this isn't exactly what you asked, looking at their uninstall instructions <https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-binary.html#macos https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-...> leads me to believe ... it's probably not a great fit. I recognize that I'm probably more skeptical than most about "curl into bash" but if one needs to run that many sudo commands plus whatever "dscl" does in order to change your mind, that tool is not for me