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Homebrew 3.0

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Re: Homebrew 3.0

#251

Post by eknkc »

dylan604 wrote: post #205
Gelob wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. i like it but yes if i dont use it everyday and 2 weeks later go to brew install something, omg it has some gigantic update to do before i can brew install anything.

so, you don't do a 'yum update' before installing software on your system (or 'apt-get update' or whatever)? Are you also the type of person that refuses to update system software because "it takes too long, and I'm too busy"?

I generally don't do an apt update before installing a package that I needed at that moment.

However I do full update / upgrades when it is convenient for me.

That's the point.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#252

Post by dylan604 »

loeg wrote: post #234
dylan604 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I'm on Big Sur running homebrew. 'ls -l /usr' reveals that /usr/local is root:wheel just like all other folders under /usr. How exactly is homebrew changing ownership?

Any chance you're on Apple Silicon? For some reason homebrew uses /usr/local on Intel macs and /opt/homebrew on ARM macs. Anyway, this requirement is well documented and not new: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues?q=is%3Aissue+%2Fusr%... http://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Installatio... Homebrew asks users (on Intel macs) to change the ownership of /usr/local to their local user. And it refuses to…

>Any chance you're on Apple Silicon?

No, I'm on an Intel chip, not M1.

>Homebrew asks users (on Intel macs) to change the ownership of /usr/local to their local user. And it refuses to run under sudo.

Again, no, not on my machine it doesn't. /usr/local is root:wheel. This is a newish (to me) machine that I gave first birthday to beginning of December 2020. The first thing I did was installed brew and started installing the things that makes my computer useful to me. No permissions were asked to be changed.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#253

Post by [deleted] »

Hamuko wrote: post #195
paultopia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm really torn about brew. On the one hand, I hate to crap on the work that the maintainers have done, and it's clearly the best thing out there for macos. On the other hand, it's a terrible dictatorial piece of software that wants to command precisely how you use your computer; those same maintainers are actively hostile to users, as evidenced by the endless stream of nasty responses to issues, arbitrary chang…

> it's a terrible dictatorial piece of software that wants to command precisely how you use your computer I've also seen examples of where Homebrew is basically dictating on how to release your software as well. There was that one case where they decided to delete the formula for mpv since mpv didn't have a recent enough of a tagged release. https://github.com/danielbair/homebrew-core/commit/b18f104f1... There was al…

[deleted]

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#254

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

quesera wrote: post #166
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone else would have filled the void if homebrew hadn’t shown up, and it would hopefully have been better." MacPorts and fink existed before homebrew took over, and they weren't better. That's why homebrew took over.

But Homebrew wasn't (and isn't) better than MacPorts, either. They both work well (we can and do quibble about the internal mechanics of each), and appeal to different groups of people. My theory is that Homebrew was announced at exactly the right time in the MacOS adoption curve. A huge number of new users arrived with no existing knowledge of MacPorts or Fink. Most of them didn't know they needed a package manager…

I used MacPorts before Homebrew was a thing, and had plenty of experience with bsd ports going back to the late 90s.

Homebrew was just straight up better, no doubt about it. It wasn't "noobs," "good timing," or "tricky marketing." They were just better, even if still not what these posters desire.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#255

Post by hombre_fatal »

jimbokun wrote: post #143
newscracker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a blog post from April 2019 on package managers on macOS. [1] The author, saagarjha (who also comments here regularly), switched from homebrew to MacPorts. A more current update to this post would probably be more helpful. In my limited experience, I’ve tried homebrew a few times, but found it a bit cumbersome with the “no sudo” requirement. [1]: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack...

This is very interesting, and maybe sheds light on why Google decided not to hire Max. There seems to be some consensus that MacPorts has the better architecture, while Homebrew has been better at responding to users, even according to Max himself. For Google, it's likely the former is more important than the latter for a lot of their projects. An architecture that doesn't scale or doesn't always do the right thing o…

> maybe sheds light on why Google decided not to hire Max.

This is the sort of myths we hold about interviews. That the company is doing such deep dive on us that they are reading our Github commits and considering the trade-offs of MacPorts vs. Homebrew architecture.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#256

Post by philistine »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #65

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'm a lowly, very dumb user too. I ran Brew doctor and realized that the default installation is now in /opt/homebrew (which to my dumb ears seems like it solves most complaints I've heard about Homebrew).

Since Homebrew threw a warning at me with my old install in /usr/local, I completely uninstalled and reinstalled Homebrew 3.0.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#257

Post by jrochkind1 »

thomaslkjeldsen wrote: post #146
jrochkind1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homebrew now runs `brew update` before every `brew install`, no? That's how it gets in the way, you just wanted to install a thing, and now you are stuck waiting for `brew update` -- which I feel takes longer than it used to? (You also may be confused between `brew update` and `brew upgrade`. I know I often am!)

Running `brew install hello` triggers `brew update` automatically unless the environment variable HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE is set: echo export HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 >> $HOME/.zshrc I do not think it was a wise decision to enable auto update on `brew install` as long time users expect `brew update` and `brew install` to be two separate steps (as it was for years) and because Homebrew no longer operates like `apt` a…

It makes sense semantically to me, and would be fine/preferable if `brew update` only took a few seconds to complete.

Cause otherwise I'm not necessarily going to remember to brew update ever, and am going to be getting old formulae. I think I'm not alone, I suspect this was done because too many users were never updating.

I am not super familair with how apt works, but I think the "workflows" of brew are already different than typical apt uses, with continuous incremental releases, and users expected to stay up to date with them -- things aren't necessarily going to keep working (installing properly) if you never run `brew update`, and I think many users were not.

I do want `brew install` to get me the latest formula for the thing I'm installing.

The problem is when it can add several minutes to a `brew install` invocation, interupting my ability to get on with my business.

But good to know about the env variable so at least I can choose which tradeoff I want!

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#258

Post by jrochkind1 »

sudhirj wrote: post #102
jrochkind1 wrote: post #65

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?

Homebrew generally doesn't do breaking changes. I haven't experienced any disruption... this version seems to be a headliner for full Apple Silicon support. Even if there are any changes, `brew doctor` usually handles things for you.

Thanks! I know homebrew doesn't generally do breaking changes, but they also don't generally do major version releases, which can sometimes be a signal for breaking changes, thus my concern!

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#259

Post by jdlyga »

I'm definitely grateful that MacOS has a package manager at all. Mac before the unix-like OS X days was like using Windows: you had to hunt for installers or DMG's. Except Mac didn't have the legacy support that Windows aims for: all your programs would break when a major update like MacOS 8 came out.

Re: Homebrew 3.0

#260

Post by anaerobicover »

personjerry wrote: post #221
paultopia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm really torn about brew. On the one hand, I hate to crap on the work that the maintainers have done, and it's clearly the best thing out there for macos. On the other hand, it's a terrible dictatorial piece of software that wants to command precisely how you use your computer; those same maintainers are actively hostile to users, as evidenced by the endless stream of nasty responses to issues, arbitrary chang…

> dictatorial piece of software Isn't that generally the point, for Apple consumers? At HN we have a skewed sample but I imagine for a lot of users (myself included), having an easy solution with configurations set for you is exactly what they want.

Not for developers, no. "Normal" Apple consumers have little reason to use brew.
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