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Homebrew 1.4.0

brew.sh

171–180 of 219 posts

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my less-favorite things is how many people always pop up to defend the Google approach and argue that if he couldn't pass such an interview he must by definition not be qualified.

No, but just because he created homebrew doesn't mean he's qualified either. Homebrew is one of the least reliable pieces of software I've ever used. It's popularity puzzles me and I've stopped letting it get near any machine I use. It's baffling and annoying to me that people view it as some default packaging solution for Mac, especially when the platform already has pkgutil/pkgbuild. I really wish something like Ru…

Popularity may not inherently imply quality, but enough popularity over time correlates with a gradual improvement in quality.

Homebrew has improved a ton over just a few short years. The Linux ecosystem did the same, as did many other projects that started out as a popular-but-less-featureful/reliable alternative.

If it's been awhile since you tried it, I'd check it out.

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#172
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first install, prompt the user to opt-in? Occasionally re-prompt a user, say, once per year to choose to opt-out if they’re opted in, just to check they’re still cool with it and haven’t forgotten and/or changed their mind on how comfortable they are with the practice? People’s opinions on that sort of thing don’t always remain static.

Opt-in is a decent enough method. But "Occasionally re-prompt a user" is a horrible idea, in my opinion. From a user perspective, that's kind of like the software forgetting the options you set. The very first time that something re-prompted me about something I had already opted-in to or out of, I would feel intense rage that it's asking me something that it had already asked me.

You would feel intense rage? Jesus. That sounds like intense overkill. You might be quite unlike an average person if you specifically--and without fail--recall every choice you've made forever when you're in the process of setting up tools.

No, it's not at all like the software forgetting the options you've set. It's the software, in the interest of providing a user with the greatest possible control over their software, while having the average user's propensity to forget minor details in mind, offering the explicit option to re-evaluate a prior choice in the future without having to remember to do so, or manually recall the way to do it.

Moreover, when I threw out the off-the-cuff idea to occasionally re-prompt, I set that occasion as an annual one. You're making it sound in this overreaction as if I suggested it to occur every few days or weeks. Instead of instantly going to such unwarranted extremes as full-on-intense-rage-mode-11, thinking to yourself, "Oh my fucking god, what the fuck is wrong with this developer that s/he'd dare to ask me this question I answered 2 years ago again?!", you might pause just a moment to consider it to be a little like recalibrating a tool that's been in use for some time. Few people keep static positions on things. Such recalibration doesn't need to occur at every minor upgrade, but perhaps major upgrades might want to ask the user to review their settings/choices.

I've changed my position on things I've opted in/out of at various times. When it's privacy-related, I've increasingly developed a harder default stance over the last 15 years. I wouldn't mind if my tools asked me to annually review old choices I've long forgotten--much like I've heard Facebook offers people their little privacy checkups (ignoring for the moment the efficacy of such a checkup when everything you do is tracked). Many people other than me reacted to the way in which the analytics "feature" was included in homebrew with surprise, because many of us never noticed the notification, and a great many of us believe tracking is something that should always be opt-in, not opt-out. However, as of this writing, I can't recall exactly what my current homebrew setting for analytics is, and I can't recall how long it's been since I last checked it to ensure it is what I think it is.

But hey, that's just me, friend. I can't remember every choice I made last month, much less last year, two years ago, or any time before that. If you do, that's cool. If you were using a tool I created/maintained, and I wanted to cover all my bases, I'd simply give you a way to say, "Don't ever fucking ask me this question again or I'll rage tweet what a forgetful little shit you are." :)

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the free market, where private companies are free to hire or not hire at will based on criteria that works for them. Writing OSS doesn’t entitle you to any job. Also “inverting” a binary tree is a trivial computation exercise. There’s a difference between engineering and scripting. Homebrew is very much a scripting problem.

"Welcome to the free market, where private companies are free to hire or not hire at will based on criteria that works for them. Writing OSS doesn’t entitle you to any job." Nobody is saying anything other than that. They're pointing out how dumb the decision is. "Also “inverting” a binary tree is a trivial computation exercise." It really isn't, especially if you're not doing it on a regular basis. Which I'd contend…

“Nobody is saying anything other than that. They're pointing out how dumb the decision is.”

I think filtering people based on ability to solve trivial binary tree manipulation problems is brilliant. Seems to objectively be working out great for google thus far.

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#174
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of one of patio11's posts somewhere. I don't remember which one, but the gist is that big companies basically can't donate to tipjars, patreons, etc. But if you make it a product with an enterprise option for support or something, they'll gladly pay tens of thousands a month.

Same thing. I could get a sign-off to order a licence worth $500 or a 20$/month subscription if it's needed, but a donation of 5$ would be absolutely impossible; not just hard, but legally unacceptable use of funds.

in germany you can just use an receipt for stuff under a certain amount. no need for a special invoice, etc. the receipt only needs the total amount, the date, effort or product name, vat percentage. well of course for a donation you need a document that you actually correctly donated, etc..

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#175

> Homebrew requires the CLT on all but the latest version of macOS (to avoid copious workarounds in formulae) Why? What are these workarounds? The linked PR didn't explain, and as someone who's still got one machine on 10.12 I'd really rather not have to keep CLT installed as well. Edit: Wow, the maintainer on that PR is a real jerk. He refused to answer a legitimate question (and locked the PR at the same time) beca…

Good luck writing your own version and supporting it. Be sure to post your progress.

Ah, the passive-aggressive old school OSS defence.

That's not an argument, that's basic herd mentality and can literally apply to any kind of critic legitimate or otherwise. Even Linus does not get a pass nowadays and there is really no reason on HN where we can be so critical of even the most minor design mistake.

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#176
post #4

The Patreon page says they receive $177 per month. That's too low for a project with such a high popularity and usage. I read somewhere ( and I bet ) it's used by Google / Facebook / Apple employees.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’m now a proud patron adding $1/mo. The number went up to $325 per month and I hope it keeps going up!

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#177
post #4

The Patreon page says they receive $177 per month. That's too low for a project with such a high popularity and usage. I read somewhere ( and I bet ) it's used by Google / Facebook / Apple employees.

> I read somewhere ( and I bet ) it's used by Google / Facebook / Apple employees.

In fairness, it's used by virtually everyone who has to do anything of significance in software development on a Mac.

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#178
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homebrew is an awesome, super useful piece of software that people put in tonnes of effort to maintain, for free. Your complaint was indeed worded rudely. Also, re: the “why” behind this commit, “to avoid copious workarounds in formulae” is already a pretty good description, I can see why he didn’t feel the need to elaborate. Remember that maintainers of projects like Homebrew have to deal with an endless stream of c…

It wasn't my complaint. And no, that's not a good description, because it gives me literally zero information to go on in order to find out what the workarounds were, how many formula actually needed them, and what the problems were that necessitated this. > Remember that maintainers of projects like Homebrew have to deal with an endless stream of complaints and feature requests Yeah, that's what happens with popular…

> the obligations he has to the community.

There isn't an obligation though. You could fork or pick an alternative as much as a maintainer/owner can abandon a project. They aren't obligated to do anything for you and you aren't obligated to do anything for them.

If you don't like a project because of personalities involved, avoid them. I have personally done this without problem. It can be a pain but I have no actual pull in the matter.

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#179

> Homebrew requires the CLT on all but the latest version of macOS (to avoid copious workarounds in formulae) Why? What are these workarounds? The linked PR didn't explain, and as someone who's still got one machine on 10.12 I'd really rather not have to keep CLT installed as well. Edit: Wow, the maintainer on that PR is a real jerk. He refused to answer a legitimate question (and locked the PR at the same time) beca…

Why is it necessary for people to be polite in the face of rudeness? Especially when the person expected to be polite is volunteering their time for you? To enlighten the polite people who have not insulted Homebrew maintainers: the issue with requiring the CLT on everything but the latest version of macOS is because of the horrible workarounds. Grep the Homebrew taps for "Xcode-only", "CLT.installed?", or "clock_get…

Possible slightly off-topic, but I discovered a screw up where due to a typo they had reverted back to an ancient version. My wording was deemed rude and I was shut out and not even given a chance to apologize or explain. That pretty much guaranteed my future non-contribution to the project.

EDIT: reworded

Re: Homebrew 1.4.0

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly weird since Apple employees are heavily discouraged from running Homebrew.

Why are they discouraged to run Homebrew?

Security no doubt.

Homebrew security is good enough for you and me but not good enough if you're working on Apple software.

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