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.
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.
Homebrew maintainer here: I'm sorry that we don't meet your expectations.
Two things for your consideration:
1. It's uniquely visible among system package managers. When people have problems with a package in `apt` or `dnf`, they find a community or third-party repository for the package or bug the upstream directly. By contrast, Homebrew has always been visible on GitHub, does not require a special login to a bugtracker on some random domain, and thus receives direct community support volume that we need to address.
2. Homebrew is not an official system package manager. We operate at Apple's whim, which generally ranges between neutral disinterest and actively trying to remove parts of the macOS userspace that we rely on. Many of our changes over the last decade (installing our own Ruby, rolling back custom source options) can be directly traced back to changes that Apple imposes that produce disproportionately greater maintenance effort from us.
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 changes to disable any functionality that they believe anyone has ever misused by their standards ever, etc. I pray daily that someone will fork it.
+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.
What prevents you to do it better then? What prevent you from forking it? Sharing improvement ideas? Contributing to the project?
"It sucks" doesn't help anyone understand your frustrations and does not serve the message you're trying to share (let this one be valid or not).
Also, as everything that is open-source/free: if you hate it, don't use it, that's it. And let the people who appreciate it be productive and build awesome tools with it.
> I hate that brew is good enough that it’s got some kind of local maximum such that there’s no replacement forthcoming.
You may be interested in trying out nix for package management [1], or even for configurations and providing development environments (see my other comment [2]).
It’s hard to disprove this but IMO brew is the best package manager I’ve used (at least out of any of the widely used ones). I’m sure there is a better way to do things but given other common package managers that I find to be much worse, I’d argue it’s equally (if not more) likely that the alternative to homebrew would be worse.
This seems like a rather exceptional, unsubstantiated, and mean spirited take. I've run into some strange issues with brew over the years, but compared to npm and apt it's been far less prone to causing me headaches.
I rage quit Homebrew to MacPorts. No complain after 2 years. Not a single bug. Installation are much faster than 10 years ago too (macports use pre-compiled binaries now). Give it a try if you have some time to lose.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Homebrew was my least favorite part of the MacOS experience, which is a shame since it was basically the most important piece of software I had installed on that thing.
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.
What a waste of bytes and bandwidth. "[homebrew] It’s the worst package manager I’ve used" is true for all users that have only used one package manager. The opposite claim ("it's the best I've used") would simultaneously be true.
You could at least have mentioned _why_ and that could have kickstarted a meaningful discussion, but instead your comment is the equivalent on a thumbs down in a youtube video.
It’s Weird that Apple doesn’t do this themselves. It’s not like they don’t have a cash. And it’s important for devs to have up to date tooling.
This intrepid band of volunteers are adding huge value to one of the largest corporations on earth. I appreciate the DIY effort of anyone who volunteers, though I see the donate tab on their website and sigh a little.
> It’s Weird that Apple doesn’t do this themselves. It’s not like they don’t have a cash.
I can understand them not wanting to do it themselves. I don't think they want to take on the responsibility for maintaining all those packages (for legal reasons or otherwise). Because it's a "not officially Apple" thing, Homebrew can probably get away with a "no warranty" sticker that an official Apple project couldn't.
What Apple should do, however, is ship a DUMP TRUCK OF MONEY to every Homebrew maintainer on a regular basis. That project is crucial to basically every Apple developer, and it massively enriches macOS as a general purpose development platform. Apple would be fools to not support it financially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacPorts (nee DarwinPorts) was started with the involvement/sponsorship of Apple and was probably the most popular Mac OS X package manager / port library around the mid-00s.
In the case of Swift, they actually took this advice to heart - and hired Max to help them do it.
That said, it remains disappointing to me that unless you're producing content with Apple's hardware or building apps for the Stores, they don't really do much to help you.
For example, if you're writing client or server-side web code, they will acknowledge your existence, and are more than willing to sell you a Mac, but that's about it.
^ This doesn't even get into the concerns around all of the supporting pieces that go along with this code - e.g, documentation, training materials, and outreach - the tooling for this part of the process is voluminous in its own right.
I don't think it's weird. Actually I think it's important to keep this as a community effort, in the spirit of FOSS. From developers, to developers, you know. Surely it would be nice for the maintainers if Apple could throw in some cash, though :)
It saddens me as I see this massive infusion of developer time and energy being donated to one of the biggest tech companies around. If that effort had instead gone into making Linux better, which Homebrew obviously builds on, where would Linux workstations be now? Would I get a nice Linux laptop from my company instead of being forced to use a MacBook?
Too much of the tooling that people want to use is GPL.
Apple is more allergic to the GPL than any other company on Earth. They would never do something official that would even put GPL software in their orbit.
I use nixpkgs and home-manager for a consistent package management and configuration across MacOS and Linux (NixOS), which others also reported great success [1]. As noted in the article [1], home-manager has a steeper learning curve, but is much more powerful (e.g., supports providing development dependencies and environment, or even extend to Ops).
For the interested, search for some variants of “homebrew home-manager nix”, and you may find lots of resources [2][3][4].
I started using Home Manager long after I adopted Nix. I must say, I should’ve used it far more earlier on. With the power of the Nix language, Home Manager gives me so much more control and customizability over packages that just can’t be provided with traditional package managers.
While it takes some learning to leverage the full capability of Home manager, it’s also easy to get started. People new to Nix can start out with a basic configuration specifying a list of packages to install and then gradually move to a more capable configuration as they learn more.
Yep. And I don't know the story and certainly wasn't there - but technical prowess alone doesn't get you the job. And honestly he may not be a good fit. Is he going to want to fix bugs or work on Google's schedule and have a boss? Some people aren't cut out for the work lifestyle.
It was Google. Because he didn't know what a binary tree was or something similar during the infamous Whiteboard test.
But I mean it make perfect sense. Google is all about building AI, ML, Algorithm, K8S etc. Complexity is their KPI, usefulness is not.
So may be it isn't so much a bad thing after all. He wouldn't have fit in.
Edit: I guess the tone didn't shine through. The "all about" is a figure of speech. A more accurate wording would be, in my opinion Google doesn't know how to built great "user" Product.
And I may also include some of the Google hiring practice [1] that were brought to twitter.
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 maintainers. For example, merging Linuxbrew back into Homebrew itself.
Honestly I can't imagine using my mac without Brew.
I don't think homebrew has more user than say apt or pacman. Maybe there are a bit more people running osx than linux, but much of them are not devs or "power users" and never run homebrew.
I agree with the general sentiment, but there are other, similar tools that also function fine as duct-tape over the missing pieces in MacOS (i.e., MacPorts).
I would say he's stuck in the shitty interface between truly creative people and macos.
I think creative people are getting the shaft from apple.
"Here's to the crazy ones" went out the window, maybe with the end of the Steve era. If you don't do it the apple way, apple doesn't care.
I mean, they support the xcode factory workers with apple languages. It's the apple equivalent of visual studio. But its sort of monochrome (like the 1984 ad)
I truly believe apple itself should have more direct/overt support for other software on their platform in a macports/homebrew way. (scripting languages?)
xquartz is sort of an example of this "forgotten lawn furniture left out in the rain". It's critical to a lot of mac users, but they distance themselves from it. Gah, at least bring it indoors when there's snow on the ground.
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.)
I only use it because IT forces Macs down our throats. It's understandable, the hardware is light years ahead of any other manufacturer, along with the OS support. But I just do the bare minimum of setup to get VNC and SSH working and GTFO to a proper remote dev box.
> But I just do the bare minimum of setup to get VNC and SSH working
Lucky for you those are both fully supported out-of-the-box, and have been for a couple of decades. Sounds like your IT team is forcing the right solution down your throats.
They support them with Hardware and technical resources. Seeing what happened with the whole CentOS mess, I am kind of glad that homebrew remains independent and can continue to do so without relying on Apple’s money.
peteretep|5 years ago
woodruffw|5 years ago
Two things for your consideration:
1. It's uniquely visible among system package managers. When people have problems with a package in `apt` or `dnf`, they find a community or third-party repository for the package or bug the upstream directly. By contrast, Homebrew has always been visible on GitHub, does not require a special login to a bugtracker on some random domain, and thus receives direct community support volume that we need to address.
2. Homebrew is not an official system package manager. We operate at Apple's whim, which generally ranges between neutral disinterest and actively trying to remove parts of the macOS userspace that we rely on. Many of our changes over the last decade (installing our own Ruby, rolling back custom source options) can be directly traced back to changes that Apple imposes that produce disproportionately greater maintenance effort from us.
paultopia|5 years ago
kspacewalk2|5 years ago
MacPorts and fink existed before homebrew took over, and they weren't better. That's why homebrew took over.
Gelob|5 years ago
loriverkutya|5 years ago
martpie|5 years ago
What prevents you to do it better then? What prevent you from forking it? Sharing improvement ideas? Contributing to the project?
"It sucks" doesn't help anyone understand your frustrations and does not serve the message you're trying to share (let this one be valid or not).
Also, as everything that is open-source/free: if you hate it, don't use it, that's it. And let the people who appreciate it be productive and build awesome tools with it.
one-punch|5 years ago
You may be interested in trying out nix for package management [1], or even for configurations and providing development environments (see my other comment [2]).
[1]: https://builtwithnix.org/
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26038614
my123|5 years ago
eyjafjallajokul|5 years ago
throw0101a|5 years ago
* https://www.pkgsrc.org/
upbeat_general|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
onedognight|5 years ago
qntty|5 years ago
yardie|5 years ago
brailsafe|5 years ago
gagarine|5 years ago
smoldesu|5 years ago
prpl|5 years ago
The had also apple silicon support for many things more than a month ago.
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
jacobsenscott|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
tomlin|5 years ago
game_the0ry|5 years ago
If you are not happy with open source, you have a couple of options:
- build your own brew
- brew is open source, so you can make contributions to improve
- pay for something like brew (though probably not an option for brew)
Have you done any of the above before complaining? I am guessing - no. Otherwise, say "thank you" and move on, my friend.
volta83|5 years ago
What a waste of bytes and bandwidth. "[homebrew] It’s the worst package manager I’ve used" is true for all users that have only used one package manager. The opposite claim ("it's the best I've used") would simultaneously be true.
You could at least have mentioned _why_ and that could have kickstarted a meaningful discussion, but instead your comment is the equivalent on a thumbs down in a youtube video.
acomjean|5 years ago
This intrepid band of volunteers are adding huge value to one of the largest corporations on earth. I appreciate the DIY effort of anyone who volunteers, though I see the donate tab on their website and sigh a little.
OskarS|5 years ago
I can understand them not wanting to do it themselves. I don't think they want to take on the responsibility for maintaining all those packages (for legal reasons or otherwise). Because it's a "not officially Apple" thing, Homebrew can probably get away with a "no warranty" sticker that an official Apple project couldn't.
What Apple should do, however, is ship a DUMP TRUCK OF MONEY to every Homebrew maintainer on a regular basis. That project is crucial to basically every Apple developer, and it massively enriches macOS as a general purpose development platform. Apple would be fools to not support it financially.
agsnu|5 years ago
chrisfinazzo|5 years ago
That said, it remains disappointing to me that unless you're producing content with Apple's hardware or building apps for the Stores, they don't really do much to help you.
For example, if you're writing client or server-side web code, they will acknowledge your existence, and are more than willing to sell you a Mac, but that's about it.
^ This doesn't even get into the concerns around all of the supporting pieces that go along with this code - e.g, documentation, training materials, and outreach - the tooling for this part of the process is voluminous in its own right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_documentation_ge...
Yaggo|5 years ago
shp0ngle|5 years ago
Nowadays they don’t want to touch anything GPL so that might be it
reaperducer|5 years ago
If Apple did it, HN would be awash in "Walled garden!" and "Monopoly!" hysteria.
Steltek|5 years ago
augustl|5 years ago
https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli
teilo|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
busterarm|5 years ago
Apple is more allergic to the GPL than any other company on Earth. They would never do something official that would even put GPL software in their orbit.
cies|5 years ago
For sure Apple employees are using lots of homebrew every day :)
Phenix88be|5 years ago
There is no money to get from it. And developers are not the "end user" for Apple anymore. I don't see why Apple should even care about Homebrew.
one-punch|5 years ago
For the interested, search for some variants of “homebrew home-manager nix”, and you may find lots of resources [2][3][4].
[1]: https://lucperkins.dev/blog/home-manager/
[2]: https://www.softinio.com/post/moving-from-homebrew-to-nix-pa...
[3]: https://wickedchicken.github.io/post/macos-nix-setup/
[4]: https://dev.to/louy2/use-nix-on-macos-as-a-homebrew-user-22d
soraminazuki|5 years ago
While it takes some learning to leverage the full capability of Home manager, it’s also easy to get started. People new to Nix can start out with a basic configuration specifying a list of packages to install and then gradually move to a more capable configuration as they learn more.
toyg|5 years ago
Jestar342|5 years ago
[1]: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
ericmay|5 years ago
bryanrasmussen|5 years ago
hello_moto|5 years ago
ksec|5 years ago
It was Google. Because he didn't know what a binary tree was or something similar during the infamous Whiteboard test.
But I mean it make perfect sense. Google is all about building AI, ML, Algorithm, K8S etc. Complexity is their KPI, usefulness is not.
So may be it isn't so much a bad thing after all. He wouldn't have fit in.
Edit: I guess the tone didn't shine through. The "all about" is a figure of speech. A more accurate wording would be, in my opinion Google doesn't know how to built great "user" Product.
And I may also include some of the Google hiring practice [1] that were brought to twitter.
[1] https://twitter.com/shaft/status/1355696154990628864?s=20
dcchambers|5 years ago
Honestly I can't imagine using my mac without Brew.
Hackbraten|5 years ago
ikawe|5 years ago
Thanks to Mike McQuaid (et al) for the last 10!
https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/graphs/contributors
yulaow|5 years ago
toyg|5 years ago
Pacman, erm what? Arc is a niche of a niche. I'd bet Alpine's package manager sees more action than that - let alone yum/rpm.
amw-zero|5 years ago
bluedino|5 years ago
chrisdhal|5 years ago
salzig|5 years ago
loeg|5 years ago
m463|5 years ago
I think creative people are getting the shaft from apple.
"Here's to the crazy ones" went out the window, maybe with the end of the Steve era. If you don't do it the apple way, apple doesn't care.
I mean, they support the xcode factory workers with apple languages. It's the apple equivalent of visual studio. But its sort of monochrome (like the 1984 ad)
I truly believe apple itself should have more direct/overt support for other software on their platform in a macports/homebrew way. (scripting languages?)
xquartz is sort of an example of this "forgotten lawn furniture left out in the rain". It's critical to a lot of mac users, but they distance themselves from it. Gah, at least bring it indoors when there's snow on the ground.
lloeki|5 years ago
Unfortunately after a dozen or so years as sole maintainer and user I dropped it a month ago[1].
If anyone wants to take over just reach out.
(not in the post but I had to pull the DO storage because I was severely out of cash, I still have the packages locally)
[0]: https://www.archmac.org/
[1]: https://lna7n.org/2020/01/06/pulling-the-plug-on-archmac.htm...
dqpb|5 years ago
batterylow|5 years ago
[1] Max Howell, https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
remix2000|5 years ago
[deleted]
evgen|5 years ago
foobarian|5 years ago
djrogers|5 years ago
Lucky for you those are both fully supported out-of-the-box, and have been for a couple of decades. Sounds like your IT team is forcing the right solution down your throats.
nailer|5 years ago
Windows is where the users are, and apt-get works just as well on WSL2 as natively.
alpineidyll3|5 years ago
jaboutboul|5 years ago
KenanSulayman|5 years ago