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As a recent Mac adopter after spending 10 years as a Linux user, Homebrew is exactly what I need it to be.

Linux OS package managers are, almost by necessity, full of outdated packages which are not the versions I want to use for day-to-day CLI applications. Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages all have their own downsides due to half-baked isolation goals and the associated usability compromises. Language-specific package managers are a mixed bag, but too narrow in scope when thinking about usage of tools rather than development based on libraries. Maybe Nix or the Arch AUR are a better option, but they come with a learning curve and/or stability compromise. I don't care how the packages are arranged on my Mac; the system is too locked down for me to really have the level of control I'd like anyway, so better to just accept the usability advantages and get on withy life.

discuss

pxc|4 years ago

> I don't care how the packages are arranged on my Mac; the system is too locked down for me to really have the level of control I'd like anyway, so better to just accept the usability advantages and get on with [my] life.

This is a valuable perspective. I wonder how much macOS primes users in general to value usability over other dimensions of good design.

(I also wonder how much better a time I'd have on macOS if I adopted this attitude.)

Maursault|4 years ago

I think we'd all have a better time if Apple would let us run current versions of xnu with only Darwin without having to piece everything together to end up with a system than might work but just won't because xnu is proprietary. I think there are valid cases where Darwin can be a more attractive choice than Linux, but there's just no interest because xnu is unattainable, and the alternative is using a Hackintosh kernel with degrees of stability rather than it being straight up rock solid stability. I don't mind the requirement of Macintosh hardware, but that isn't good enough for Apple, you either take the whole system or nothing (or live vicariously dependent on a few intrepid kernel hackers).