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by avidphantasm 1310 days ago
Going to ask a naive and possibly lazy question. On macOS does this replace Homebrew and MacPorts? I used to use MacPorts, now Homebrew. However, I’m thinking of switching back to MacPorts due to how painful using prior package versions is in Homebrew; sometimes I can’t run bleeding edge versions, and Homebrew’s all or nothing approach to versions isn’t working for me anymore.

I use Python with a few key native packages that are a pain to build myself (NumPy, GDAL primarily). Should I be considering Nix instead of MacPorts?

1 comments

> On macOS does this replace Homebrew and MacPorts?

I use Homebrew for casks and the few CLI tools I need for all my projects (e.g. the Github CLI tool) and I use Nix for CLI tools I need to work on a specific repository using specific versions (e.g. node).

Seconding this! When I'm on a Mac, I use Homebrew only for casks (automatically downloading .apps and DMGs for macOS GUI), and Nix for project-specific development environments. I do also like to use Nix for globally available packages, though, especially via Nix-Darwin.