alt Hacker NewsI wish mac users would stop using homebrew and use a real package manager with actual dependency management.
At the very least, replace homebrew with something like devbox which has `devbox global` for globally managing packages, it uses nix under the hood, and it's probably the simplest most direct replacement for homebrew.
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I use MacPorts because of older versions of Homebrew having a weird and insecure design. [1] I think some of those design issues may have been fixed, but I’m wary of Homebrew.
[1]: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack...
It's not necessary because Mac applications shouldn't have any dependencies other than the OS. (Whatever additional libraries they use should be included.) This should also be true of basic developer tools. Once you're in a particular ecosystem, tools like deno, npm, or uv can handle their own dependencies.
Alternatively, you could do development in a container and use apt-get there. That's probably safest now that we're using coding agents.
I wish the mac users would switch to a real OS, linux, so that software companies would release linux versions of stuff first.
Codex, Claude Desktop, etc etc all starting out as "macOS exclusive" feels so silly when they're targeting programmers. Linux is the only OS a programmer can actually patch and contribute to, and yet somehow we've got a huge number of developers who don't care about having a good package manager, don't care about being able to modify their kernel, don't care about their freedom to access and edit the code of the software they rely on to work...
It's depressing how much of the software industry is just people on macbooks using homebrew to install a newer version of bash and paying $5 for "magnet" to snap windows to the corners since their OS holds them in a prison where they can't simply build themselves a tiling window manager in a weekend.
The OS is core to your tools and workflows, and using macOS cedes your right to understand, edit, and improve your OS and workflows to a company that is actively hostile to open source, and more and more hostile to users (with a significant increase in ads and overly priced paid services over the years).
Anyway, yeah, homebrew sucks. At least nix works on macOS now so there's an okay package manager there, but frankly support for macOS has been a huge drag of resources on the nix ecosystem, and I wish macOS would die off in the programming ecosystem so nix could ditch it.
Huh? Homebrew supports and frequently uses dependencies between formulae. It’s a bit janky around upgrades in my experience, but you’re going to have to clarify what you mean.
I never use it when I can have my way.
The UNIX in macOS is good enough for my needs, and I manually install anything extra that I might require.
MacPorts was created by the creator of the original FreeBSD ports system who was also an Apple employee. It ought to be everyone's first choice for package management on macOS.
I don't agree this is an issue and I'll tell you why: Homebrew isn't responsible for keeping the system functional like apt or pacman, it's a supplemental thing. I've also found it's useful in this capacity on Linux specifically with LTS distros, I can get the latest fzf or zoxide or whatever without having to add some shady repo.