Homebrew 3.0

Post by 0xCMP » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #429

0xCMP wrote: post #34

Brew is great. I’ve switched to using Nix as much as I could but most “Apps” aren’t supported yet where `brew install —cask` has it right away. Always nice to know Brew will always have the latest version around. The only problem with that ends up being that if you use brew for development dependencies like Node or Python you can’t manage multiple versions. Nix being the most powerful in this area.

I've switched to Nix and never looked back, thanks to Homebrew embedding spyware into the package manager. I keep my non-system apps in ~/Applications and back them up with the rest of my files.

Post by _rend » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

Hackbraten wrote: post #447

_rend wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with Hackbraten's answer — I don't know if this would be more or less work for you but would a per-user Homebrew installation help? I don't have any multi-user machines but for years I've kept my Homebrew installation in ~/Homebrew, where I have complete ownership of it. (Really you can install Homebrew in any directory) Or would the space/compilation cost be prohibitive? Not a Homebrew maintainer, just a satis…

On macOS, one major drawback is that if you use a non-standard installation directory for Homebrew, you can no longer install binary packages and everything is compiled from source. If you can live with that, you should be fine though.

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

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…

Post by plorkyeran » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

joseph wrote: post #468

vetinari wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns /usr/local/Homebrew into a git repository; not /usr/local itself. Whatever it links into /usr/local/{bin,include,lib,sbin,share} is just a symlink into /usr/local/Cellar.

Are you sure about that? I currently have it installed in ~/brew and commands link from ~/brew/Cellar into ~/brew/bin and there is a .git directory in ~/brew. I used to put it in /usr/local and it irked me that there was a /usr/local/.git. That was the main reason I stopped putting it there.

Post by NicolaiS » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 8:32 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #313

peteretep wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrarian view here: brew fucking sucks. It’s the worst package manager I’ve used for doing random unwanted updates at odd times. Someone else would have filled the void if homebrew hadn’t shown up, and it would hopefully have been better. I hate that brew is good enough that it’s got some kind of local maximum such that there’s no replacement forthcoming. There, I said it.

brew is an amazing achievement. It doesn't do random unwanted updates at odd times. It doesn't do anything at all unless you run run it. And it tells you want it will do beforehand. Nobody would have "filled the void" - building software isn't a zero sum game. If someone had something better they would have continued to work on it and it would have "taken over". There, I said it.