running macports along with homebrew

[Ken Cunningham]

I think homebrew gets attention for two reasons.


1. a one-line copy & paste install command that is pasted into the terminal  (macports could / should do that too, BTW).

2. the fact that it symlinks it's stuff into /usr/local, making it easier to use it's installed products for building other software for amateurs (macports could do that too).

3. My impression is that it's not so difficult to get things accepted. If a submission builds on Travis on 10.10 to 10.12, it's usually in homebrew within a day or so, it seems.

On the other hand:

1. MacPorts, in general, pays more attention to the details. There is significantly more OCD in the submission reviews, which is both very good and sometimes deflating. But a port in macports is very trustworthy, and in the end, that is the single most important thing.

2. MacPorts has a couple of real superstars who can fix things it seems nobody else can fix. So we have gcc6 working perfectly well all the way back to Tiger, for example, and the latest-greatest clang / llvm features, etc.


Ken