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macOS - Development and Darwin
MacPorts and Homebrew. Which is better?
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<blockquote data-quote="knightjp" data-source="post: 1829850" data-attributes="member: 33134"><p>Update on MacOS Package Management:</p><p></p><p>Have been using Macports the whole time since my last update. I'm not a developer so my install of packages are minimal at best, but I am looking to get into programming and development. So all this research and info gathering isn't a futile exercise. Homebrew is still the dominant one and has a growing number of packages.</p><p></p><p>Although I've been using MacPorts, Pkgsrc has been in the background of my mind. I even wrote an article about it here with a description on installation.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/pkgsrc-the-unknown-gem/" target="_blank">Pkgsrc - The Unknown Gem</a></p><p></p><p>Since writing the article, I have been trying to get a discussion going on Reddit and other places to get more information on it.</p><p>For most developers, MacPorts will give you guys everything that you need. Looking through forum post, threads etc., Homebrew users seem to quite active in bashing other package managers and treat the below mentioned article as some kind of heresy.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://applehelpwriter.com/2018/03/21/how-homebrew-invites-users-to-get-pwned/" target="_blank">How Homebrew invites users to get pwned</a></p><p></p><p>Anyways both the article and their attitude make Homebrew a pleasant proposition. Not saying that it is a bad package manager, just that it is not entirely the one that I would choose. Probably most of the developers that are on MacOS these days use it with various degrees of success.</p><p></p><p>So back to Pkgsrc. In talking to one of the principle maintainers of Pkgsrc (<a href="https://twitter.com/jperkin" target="_blank">Jonathan Perkin</a>), he informed me that he was using Pkgsrc on MacOS round about the same time that MacPorts was even invented -around 2001.</p><p>Because Pkgsrc is designed to be portable among a variety of platforms, it is maintained by number of developers regardless of whether their primary platform is NetBSD, SmartOS, MacOS, Haiku or whatever. Thus everyone benefits from work and updates done by all the platforms. So if an update comes from NetBSD, MacOS gets it too.</p><p></p><p>According to jperkin, you can use the same packages on MacOS, Linux, SmartOS, NetBSD and not have to switch tools each time. Also fixes for one OS can often improve all the others as well.</p><p></p><p>Now all of this is to not knock down MacPorts. If your package is a stand alone one for MacOS alone, chances are that you will only find it on MacPorts or Homebrew as it is often the case. But if you are looking for the same tools that you would find on Linux or the BSDs, then you will easily find it here in Pkgsrc.</p><p></p><p>After the conversation with JPerkin, I will be giving Pkgsrc another try.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="knightjp, post: 1829850, member: 33134"] Update on MacOS Package Management: Have been using Macports the whole time since my last update. I'm not a developer so my install of packages are minimal at best, but I am looking to get into programming and development. So all this research and info gathering isn't a futile exercise. Homebrew is still the dominant one and has a growing number of packages. Although I've been using MacPorts, Pkgsrc has been in the background of my mind. I even wrote an article about it here with a description on installation. [URL='https://julxrp.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/pkgsrc-the-unknown-gem/']Pkgsrc - The Unknown Gem[/URL] Since writing the article, I have been trying to get a discussion going on Reddit and other places to get more information on it. For most developers, MacPorts will give you guys everything that you need. Looking through forum post, threads etc., Homebrew users seem to quite active in bashing other package managers and treat the below mentioned article as some kind of heresy. [URL='https://applehelpwriter.com/2018/03/21/how-homebrew-invites-users-to-get-pwned/']How Homebrew invites users to get pwned[/URL] Anyways both the article and their attitude make Homebrew a pleasant proposition. Not saying that it is a bad package manager, just that it is not entirely the one that I would choose. Probably most of the developers that are on MacOS these days use it with various degrees of success. So back to Pkgsrc. In talking to one of the principle maintainers of Pkgsrc ([URL='https://twitter.com/jperkin']Jonathan Perkin[/URL]), he informed me that he was using Pkgsrc on MacOS round about the same time that MacPorts was even invented -around 2001. Because Pkgsrc is designed to be portable among a variety of platforms, it is maintained by number of developers regardless of whether their primary platform is NetBSD, SmartOS, MacOS, Haiku or whatever. Thus everyone benefits from work and updates done by all the platforms. So if an update comes from NetBSD, MacOS gets it too. According to jperkin, you can use the same packages on MacOS, Linux, SmartOS, NetBSD and not have to switch tools each time. Also fixes for one OS can often improve all the others as well. Now all of this is to not knock down MacPorts. If your package is a stand alone one for MacOS alone, chances are that you will only find it on MacPorts or Homebrew as it is often the case. But if you are looking for the same tools that you would find on Linux or the BSDs, then you will easily find it here in Pkgsrc. After the conversation with JPerkin, I will be giving Pkgsrc another try. [/QUOTE]
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