A general philosophical question about MacPorts

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

Bill Cole wrote:
> Because running the tools it provides in a VM is a grotesque waste of 
> RAM and disk space and puts a wall up between tools I want to use 
> occasionally and the UI where I prefer to work mostly.

I second that, for me a VM is a waste and only the "last possible mean". 
Except of course if you need VM to have many different environments and 
don't want to have a multi-boot or a multi-machine setup.

>
> Also, on one old 1st generation Core Duo iMac, it helps me to build 
> and run a suite of server software and other key tools that can face 
> the Internet with reasonable safety and an attack surface that doesn't 
> quite look like any other machine while seeming irresistible to a 
> certain class of miscreants. I have a professional interest in the 
> unique behavioral intelligence I get from that machine that I cannot 
> get anywhere else. It would be a serious chore to maintain that host 
> as 'live bait' without MacPorts and I hate the idea of just discarding 
> a machine that would otherwise have no practical use.

Right, MacPorts provides also an excellent way for having older Macs 
running, since it allows to get current software compiled for your 
system when perhaps a binary is not provided, to get updated 
dependencies, etc.
Having e.g. gcc 6.5 and clang on Leopard or Snow Leopard is jsut 
excellent and can be both your goal (if you want to develop) or a tool 
to geto other applications you need.
So are up-to-date svn and git clients!

Using Gimp natively is just nice, isn't it?

Riccardo