Its been the defacto standard for package management for a while, and it works on top of the base OS thanks to /usr/local having priority in $PATH
> What about python? You have to replace the built-in one don’t you?
If Python 2.7.10 doesn't suit your needs, yes.
$ /usr/bin/python --version
Python 2.7.10
$ /usr/local/bin/python2 --version
Python 2.7.15
$ /usr/local/bin/python3 --version
Python 3.6.5
Same with Bash:
$ /bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
$ /usr/local/bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.4.19(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17.3.0)
Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
With Python it is a bit annoying with variables but other than that not a big deal. I started out with Bash v2 so that's my reference point. Sometimes its annoying for portability reasons.
Rumor is Apple doesn't like GPLv3. I don't see it as a big problem but that is thanks to the efforts of Homebrew package maintainers.
> Its been the defacto standard for package management
While I agree that it's a standard for package management, I don't think that using a package manager is the defacto standard. I've yet to see any onboarding docs that use brew install, for the reasons I stated parallel to your comment.
The major reason I don't use homebrew and don't recommend it is because it's an absolute pain to use a version manager due to where brew stores its binary files.
I don't use python very frequently, so I don't really think much about it much when installing. I'm pretty sure I installed it with anaconda, but can't remember. As I mentioned above I doubt I used brew for the same reason.
I typically only use brew for installing linux commands that are absent from osx or for one-off uses of something random. Looking at my brew list, it's things like phantomjs or rethinkdb. I'll uninstall them with brew and use their installer if I actually end up using them.
Its been the defacto standard for package management for a while, and it works on top of the base OS thanks to /usr/local having priority in $PATH
> What about python? You have to replace the built-in one don’t you?
If Python 2.7.10 doesn't suit your needs, yes.
$ /usr/bin/python --version Python 2.7.10
$ /usr/local/bin/python2 --version Python 2.7.15
$ /usr/local/bin/python3 --version Python 3.6.5
Same with Bash:
$ /bin/bash --version GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
$ /usr/local/bin/bash --version GNU bash, version 4.4.19(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17.3.0) Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
With Python it is a bit annoying with variables but other than that not a big deal. I started out with Bash v2 so that's my reference point. Sometimes its annoying for portability reasons.
Rumor is Apple doesn't like GPLv3. I don't see it as a big problem but that is thanks to the efforts of Homebrew package maintainers.