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Comment by wishinghand | Hacker News Reader

I've only used Homebrew to install Node and that went well. What're the areas Homebrew gets ugly?

Install a modern Bash and set it as your default shell. When Homebrew updates (which it does automatically now) you might be locked out of your Terminal.

`brew --prefix package` returns the latest installable package, and not the version you actually have installed.

Also things like: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/2402

It tries to do too much and ends up being a never ending surprise from hell.

(The solution to the Bash issue is to hard code the path for chsh, etc.)

I've never had issues with Homebrew, and no one I know has either.

I have had apt refuse to install npm because of a full /boot partition (Imagine if Homebrew refused to run because I couldn't update OS X)

I think it's ironic you say homebrew is the one trying to do too much...

What. I've seen issues with Homebrew at every company/team I've worked with since it came out. The solution is always the same: Use vagrant and chef/puppet for your development environment.

Meanwhile, apt packages are incredibly stable, install the same way every time, and are exactly what you'd run on the server anyway. You can use PPAs if you need bleeding edge versions.

I really don't know what to tell you then, because I've yet to see a Homebrew installation that couldn't install packages, but many times I've had apt break and require either fixing something unrelated to installing my packages (like failed upgrades) or copying and pasting some dpkg invocations until things weren't broken anymore. And when I mention the latter most Linux users I've spoken to say PPAs are a great way to end up doing that (I don't want to start vetting PPAs when I need software, I've never had an issue with a Homebrew installation, be it bleeding edge or old as dirt and requiring finding an old version).

I have no idea how you'd compare Vagrant to... homebrew. Sometimes it's convenient to have software on my actual machine, not a VM...

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