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Homebrew 3.0

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Re: Homebrew 3.0

#401
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by random unwanted updates? As far as I know, the only way to update is by running brew upgrade.

To codify both replies to yours as an outsider who watches macOS coworkers struggle: brew is akin to running Arch, where the concept is latest-tagged-release of any given software. The newest version of X introduces a feature which has a need of Y library (dependency) >= n+1, where n is your already installed version. It just so happens that Y is shared between 3 applications; so if you upgrade Y to satisfy X, you no…

> Brew is more "AUR-like" where it's all down downstream on your own system, so you get to deal with the work and churn through the recompiles yourself.

I don’t see how Homebrew would be similar to AUR.

Unlike AUR contributors, Homebrew maintainers curate the packages, test them, monitor upstream projects for updates, build and upload binary packages and do their best to support users when anything breaks.

Anytime a Homebrew user installs a formula from homebrew-core and the system starts to (re-)compile, almost certainly something is wrong.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacPorts does also still drop to compiling from source more often than Homebrew. But that’s mostly because they take a more conservative legal approach towards the GPL—for instance, they won't distribute binaries of any GPL software that links with OpenSSL. Also, ports for older/ancient versions of OS X are frequently source-only, but since Homebrew doesn’t support such systems at all, it's not really a fair comparis…

> Also, ports for older/ancient versions of OS X are frequently source-only, but since Homebrew doesn’t support such systems at all, it's not really a fair point of comparison. On an old, unsupported, system homebrew drops down to compiling. just the other day it compiled for four hours just to update one program. kinda infuriating really since there are downloads for those packages still.

[deleted]

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#403
post #3

I can’t even begin to imagine how much value Max Howell (creator of Homebrew) has added to the world. It’s the recommended package manager at every place I’ve worked at and saves so much headache. I use Linux at home and package managers like AUR are great, but macOS is where the users are.

I agree. Is Brew perfect? No, far from it. But I think that given the tools available at the time, Brew is the right balance between technically good and being really easy to use. The dependence on git means speed isn't great, especially if you don't use it often, but it keeps things simple and maintainable. I also think it's been fantastic to see the level of support from the community and the efforts of the maintai…

Thank you so much. Comments like yours are what keeps us going. Much appreciated!

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#404

I don't understand if there are implications to upgrading to homebrew 3.0 for me a lowly user. Will things break? Will I lose access to formulae that haven't yet been upgraded to work with brew 3.0? Should I upgrade right away or hold off for a while? Which is least likely to interupt my workflow in which I count on brew just working?

i migrated with brew bundle in a fresh install and it worked wonderfully.

i've never even heard of "brew bundle". Not sure if you're suggesting I need to do a "fresh install", or how I'd do that! But I can google!

I guess I was sort of expecting some migration instructions with the release notes...

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#405
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are probably downvoting it because in a scant few lines you manage to pack in two lies and a half-truth. It is not packed with spyware, it has not fallen by the wayside, and the full clone is due to a request from github to reduce the load caused by homebrew users (as in it is so popular that it caused a noticeable impact on github servers.)

Stop calling names and searching for lies where there are none. I didn't bother explaining that all, because I assumed people coming here are already Homebrew users, as those who are usually already know that all. It's just pity to see where is it going[0][1]… -- [0] Regarding spyware: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/Library/Homebre... [1] Regarding the forceful approach to unshallowing, they just chose…

Re. [0]: how does anonymous telemetry (number of unique installs per package) constitute spyware?

Re. [1]: GitHub pays the bills for (a large part of) the infrastructure we’re using. They reached out to us, explained the problem and asked us to unshallow. Honestly, what would you have done instead of complying?

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also any random operation can take 20 minutes to complete if you haven't used brew in a while.

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 ) which may fix the issue of forgetting to manually update.

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.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#407

I am fascinated by the polarizing nature of Homebrew on HN. I've used both MacPorts and Homebrew, and I think the only reason I switched to Homebrew years ago was that Homebrew didn't try to install stuff at a system level, which felt more in line with a package manager that wasn't integrated into the OS. But I'm sure MacPorts is fine still. Why are people so strongly opinionated about this, particularly on the pro-M…

HN, and the open source world in general, has no sense of perspective. I mean, even as someone who once built my own Linux system from scratch I don't understand why there are death threats connected to something called "systemd".

It's a bubble that most of us grow out of once we discover that there is more to life. Apparently some people never do.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am confused by this. sudo seems like a far larger surface area than running as me. If it's just me then it's just me, but if it's sudo, then it's the entire box.

It depends whether you trust the tool maintainers more than the package definition maintainers. I certainly would. But don't take my word for it— here's a MacPorts developer explaining the sandboxing of builds: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/106942

Thank you for this link. This is the first robust argument for running as root that I've seen, and completely upends my assumptions.

I'd been considering trying macports but this has convinced me.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#409

I am fascinated by the polarizing nature of Homebrew on HN. I've used both MacPorts and Homebrew, and I think the only reason I switched to Homebrew years ago was that Homebrew didn't try to install stuff at a system level, which felt more in line with a package manager that wasn't integrated into the OS. But I'm sure MacPorts is fine still. Why are people so strongly opinionated about this, particularly on the pro-M…

It's ideology. They're both fine at what they do at this point, and you really only need to choose based on what has the packages you need.

For reference, I use MacPorts. I often tell new users to just use Homebrew. It really just doesn't matter.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#410

I don't understand if there are implications to upgrading to homebrew 3.0 for me a lowly user. Will things break? Will I lose access to formulae that haven't yet been upgraded to work with brew 3.0? Should I upgrade right away or hold off for a while? Which is least likely to interupt my workflow in which I count on brew just working?

I agree. Any type of "migration guide" that I should be aware of?

They mention that ["various methods have been deprecated, disabled and removed"][0] but its hard to read from that PR exactly which commands no longer work.

Thanks for all the great work on homebrew!

0: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/10397

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