Homebrew: A Packagers Deep Dive

A deep-dive on the interesting (both good and bad) aspects of the Homebrew package manager that will be interesting to other package manager maintainers or enthusiasts.

Based on my experience as a user (and very sporadic packager) of other OS system and language package managers I detail the things I feel that Homebrew does well, badly and what we plan on changing and what we cannot.

Transcript

1. Homebrew A Packagers Deep Dive Mike McQuaid
2. Project Leader (2019-Present) Maintainer (2009-Present) https://github.com/MikeMcQuaid https://twitter.com/MikeMcQuaid A
3. 📜 History 😍 Does Well 😭 Does Badly ❄ Cannot Change 🆕 Planned Change
4. 📜 History
5. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
6. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
7. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
8. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
9. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
10. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
11. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
12. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
13. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/commit/29d85578e
14. 📚 Avoid duplication 🧘 Focused scope 👪 Community ownership 👷 Easy contribution
15. 😍 Does Well
16. https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
17. https://docs.brew.sh/How-To-Open-a-Homebrew-Pull-Request
18. https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#bump-formula-pr-options-formula
19. brew upgrade shellcheck
20. https://docs.brew.sh/Maintainers-Avoiding-Burnout
21. https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/03/19/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-nothing/
22. 👪 Community ownership 👷 Easy contribution 👩🔬 Sensible defaults 👩🔧 Prioritise maintainers
23. 😭 Does Badly
24. 👪 Community ownership 👷 Easy contribution 👩🔬 Sensible defaults 👩🔧 Prioritise maintainers
25. 👪 No individual ownership 👷 Expect user contribution 👩🔬 Bad “power user” defaults 👩🔧 Prioritise low support load
26. https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/88655
27. https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/88660
28. https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#environment
29. https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#environment
30. https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#developer-subcommand
31. https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/new?template=bug.yml
32. 🆕 Cannot Change
33. https://docs.brew.sh/Versions
34. https://docs.brew.sh/Tips-N'-Tricks#installing-previous-versions-of-formulae
35. https://docs.brew.sh/Installation
36. https://docs.brew.sh/Formula-Cookbook#homebrew-terminology
37. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
38. 🆕 Planned Change
39. https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#environment
40. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/10846
41. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22help+wanted%22
42. 🏎 Faster updates 🍾 More relocatable bottles ❓ Who knows?
43. ❤ Thanks! 🙋 Questions? @MikeMcQuaid