What are the best developer tools for Mac OSX?

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score 104 · Accepted Answer

Homebrew

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Top Pro

Quick access to a large repository of open source software

Homebrew makes it easy for people to quickly install any open source software (that is contained within the apps repositories) for Mac. See More

Top Con

Installing into /usr/local means frequent collisions with 3rd party programs

Nathanial McConnell's Experience

Essential. Period. See More

Specs

requires sudo:no

packages:4635

Top Pro

Easy to setup and use

Once installed, you control Homebrew using the brew command. You can find packages using brew search, install them using brew install and remove them using brew uninstall. See More

Top Con

Command line tools for XCode required

Once xcode is installed you can install Homebrew, including new(er)/different versions of most of the build stuff that xcode-select installed, like a newer gcc, newer git, etc. See More

Marc-André Appel's Experience

I always get what I need, fast from the CLI See More

Top Pro

Recipes are simple and easy to use

The recipes themselves are Ruby scripts and are small, simple to understand and easy to create and modify. See More

Top Con

May cause issues when trying to create symlinks or installing in places where SIP has changed permissions

One of the things to like about Homebrew is that it refuses to run things under sudo most of the time. This is a great policy, but it causes issues when you want to create symlinks or install in places that SIP has changed permissions on. (Alternatively, you could install Homebrew somewhere other than /usr/local, but that might break various packages that depend on having stuff in and relative to /usr/local/.) See More

Top Pro

Does not require using sudo

One of the things to like about Homebrew is that it refuses to run things under sudo most of the time. This is a great policy, but it causes issues when you want to create symlinks or install in places that SIP has changed permissions on. See More

Top Pro

Less maintenance than Macports

Macports seems to be able to get into a bad state where new packages are unable to be installed, or installed software was unable to be updated. This simply hasn't happened with Homebrew. In addition to not having to deal with corruption problems, Homebrew installs packages in userland. Not requiring root to install software is a big win. See More

Top Pro

Unintrusive

Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local. Homebrew won’t install files outside its prefix, and you can place a Homebrew installation wherever you like. See More

Top Pro

Builds quickly and requires few dependencies

Homebrew as much as possible uses already existing libraries and tools to install software thus making builds quick and requiring few dependencies. See More

The Best 2 of 28 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Homebrew

My Recommendation for Homebrew

Quick access to a large repository of open source software

Installing into /usr/local means frequent collisions with 3rd party programs

Easy to setup and use

Command line tools for XCode required

Recipes are simple and easy to use

May cause issues when trying to create symlinks or installing in places where SIP has changed permissions

Does not require using sudo

Less maintenance than Macports

Unintrusive

Builds quickly and requires few dependencies

Wide userbase

Free and open source

Open Source

My Recommendation for iTerm2

My Recommendation for iTerm2

Open paths and URLs with command-click

Not necessary

Extremely customizable

Split Panes

tmux integration

Customization

Active maintainers

Complete out of the box

You only need to type in commands once

Completely free and open source

Can be configured as a drop-down terminal

Supported by many applications as a terminal app selection

Supports mouse actions

Hi-color support

Autocomplete is built-in

Fine tuning for fonts

Can immediately open files inside a text editor

Any key can be mapped to any function

26 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Sublime Text

My Recommendation for Sublime Text

Powerful

Nag screens

Extensive package repository

Paid

Python API

Non-native Mac app

Very fast

Infrequently updated

Has tons of plugins available

Offers Command Palette

Multi-line select and editing

Comfortable to work with

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

IntelliSense is great

Yet another web browser in a box app

Fast and powerful.

Updated frequently

Integrated Git

Ready to use out of the box

Integrated terminal

Great performance

Extendable through plugins

Embedded Git control

JavaScript IntelliSense support

Good support for new Emmet syntax

ESLint integration

Python support

Huge community behind it

Integrated debugging

Libre/open source

Extendable through plug-ins

It has gotten really good

Integrated task runners

JS typechecking

TypeScript integration

My Recommendation for Xcode

My Recommendation for Xcode

Easy to install

Live syntax checking, built-in documentation, code completion

My Recommendation for Tower