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A comment on Homebrew 4.0.0.

Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by tacker2000 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @08:33AM (#34818364)
Homebrew is a good concept, but can be a frustrating nightmare sometimes due to their nazi-like insistance on always upgrading to the latest versions and even disabling the installation of old versions (like PHP 7.2 for example)

I cant count how many time my PHP or Python versions got hosed just because i was installing something completely unrelated, and then it took me hours to get working again.

Also the blocking of older PHP versions i dont understand. Sometimes i need those for old projects. Just let me install what i want, no?

Theres too much “nannying” here to be honest. I might consider switching to Macports, ive heard good things about it.

Its too bad brew is so entrenched in the mac dev community but actually its pretty damn useless for developers.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by nonninz on Thursday February 16, 2023 @08:39AM (#34818403)
Agreed.

For these kinds of versioned tools (mostly language compilers/interpreters) I've switched to asdf[1][2] and never looked back.

$brew install asdf

[1] https://asdf-vm.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33323261

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by antihero on Thursday February 16, 2023 @08:37AM (#34818393)
You shouldn’t use brew for development tools and runtimes really, you should should use a language specific version manager or asdf. Brew for system stuff.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by tacker2000 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @09:29AM (#34819073)
I agree! The problem is, in the PHP world i rely heavily upon Laravel Valet, and it supports only brew…
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by jillesvangurp on Thursday February 16, 2023 @09:48AM (#34819304)
Agreed, sdkman and mini conda are two nice options for this.

In general, anything Java, python, node.js, etc. related you don't want to have installed globally if you can avoid it.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by DanHulton on Thursday February 16, 2023 @10:32AM (#34819957)
Does "nazi" even mean anything anymore, or do we just use it to describe things we don't like? Does nobody care about Godwin's law?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by rvz on Thursday February 16, 2023 @11:41AM (#34821061)
It is so overused that it has lost almost all its meaning. It's getting very boring to see it being used around loosely and carelessly, especially when the word is used to describe things that people don't like.

Godwin's Law certainly applies in this case.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Homebrew 4.0.0 by tacker2000 on Thursday February 16, 2023 @06:48PM (#34828473)
In what world does it mean “something you dont like”? It means “overzealous” and has been used in that way in recent times. Ever heard of the word “grammar-nazi”?

So im getting flagged here for using a word as it is supposed to be.

Way to go for censorship and suppressing opinions then, since i am pointing out a valid criticism of the homebrew project.

[ Parent | on HN ]