[reedlaw]

"Doing stuff" for developers often includes installing and running packages such as databases, programming languages, editors, etc. On OS X, there is only an App Store built-in. You have to choose one of many package managers[1]. Each package may get installed in its own non-standard way. Linux distributions like Debian or Arch have standardized package managers which handle dependencies and updates much more smoothly than any OS X implementation I've come across.

1. http://www.onthelambda.com/2013/10/14/the-state-of-package-m...

[renaudg]

You don't have to choose, nowadays you just use Homebrew for anything that might not be built-in.

[matobago]

Take a look of this http://brew.sh/