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by OJFord 3782 days ago 

    > the core WTF is this: why doesn't OSX integrate a
    > package manager for its unixy side?
They could, but my guess would be that they don't want friendly-looking tutorials (i.e. ones that the average user wouldn't be scared to follow) saying:

    > Ah, you just need to update your packages; install foo:
    >     macman -Syu && macman -S foo
They don't want to 'have to' offer support for average users accidentally doing 'power user' things, because they were built in.
1 comments
JonathonW 3782 days ago
Except there are lots of other "power user" things that are built in. Where do you draw the line?

It's more likely that they just consider package management out of scope for their part of development-- something that benefits too few people to be worth the cost. Seems to have paid off, too-- package management has been well-handled on OSX for a long time, both through semi-sanctioned projects like MacPorts (which is community-developed but is hosted by Apple) and through community projects like Fink and Homebrew.

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OJFord 3781 days ago 

    > there are lots of other "power user" things that are
    > built in
Can you think of any that were they not there, they would still implement today?

I thought someone might bring up AppleScript - but I think that's a relic of every user being a 'power user', and personally I really doubt it'd be created today if it didn't already exist; it probably doesn't take much to keep it around now that it is.

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