[rgoulter]

> MacOS is still a second-class citizen in the Nix world and a fair amount of stuff doesn't work properly

In my experience:

With fewer nix users on macOS, it's more likely you'll run into software which isn't in the binary cache, & so will compile from source. (brew also does this).

With fewer nix users on macOS, it's may take longer for packages broken on macOS to be fixed.

It's a bit more of a hurdle to use .app programs out-of-the-box compared to brew, due to the symlinking.

[winterqt]

> With fewer nix users on macOS, it's more likely you'll run into software which isn't in the binary cache, & so will compile from source.

This isn't necessarily true, unless the package happened to fail to build on Hydra, or it just hasn't been built yet. (Every package is built for every platform that has builders in Hydra, it's not a matter of maintenance unless it just doesn't build.)

Does brew do this differently? I thought they also automatically compile every package.

[pxc]

.app programs which require Xcode to build weren't in the binary caches altogether, last I checked. Stuff with proprietary software in its build toolchain doesn't get built on Hydra.

I just use brew for .apps (and only for .apps) when I'm on macOS.

[JamesSwift]

Yep, I use Brew with a Brewfile to handle most casks. A select few I've manually created derivations for. This seems to be the path of much less resistance.