Switching from fink to DarwinPorts because fink has gotten rather out of date. So far I'm finding the ports utility quite inferior to fink/apt.
* Install starts installing dependencies without asking or even telling you what its about to do (for example, I asked it to install subversion and now its installing apr).
* Uninstall does not appear to have any option for "uninstall this and all its dependencies". When you try to uninstall something with deps it only tells you its first depenency.
* When you do say "port uninstall thing things_dependency" it still complains that thing has a dependency on things_dependency. You appear to have to manually uninstall in the correct order.
* No binary install. I don't relish the idea of compiling a bazillion packages from source. Sometimes I want my software NOW!
* The GUI, Port Authority, keeps trying to sell you its Aqua version. You have to search around quite a bit to find the free, precompiled version. And its X11 only. Also it sucks. I can't select more than one package at a time. And it asks for my password over and over again. What the hell?
* I installed port's perl5.8. Then I installed p5-pathtools. I had to force it to overlay Cwd.pm. Then I uninstalled p5-pathtools... and it didn't put perl5.8's Cwd.pm back so I'm left with a broken perl5.8.
* They don't archive ports' source code so the availability of a given port is dependent on each download URL not changing and the individual server not going down. Which is to say not terribly good availability.
fink was written in Perl so I had a chance to patch it up (and did). port is written in TCL. TEE CEE ELLLLLLLLL!!!
Here's what has made me decide to run screaming back to fink (its a good thing I didn't delete /sw).
* ports installed GNU coreutils but prepending a "g" in front of every program. gchmod. gdate. ghostname. gls!!!
I hate TCL
schwern on 2006-09-14T15:49:41
As for Tcl...so? Tcl is a nice little language. Has its quirks but so does Perl. They are even adding OO to the core in the next release. I use it for small gui utilities myself. Tcl has come a long way, just as Perl has.
Specificly to do with TCL, me and ports...
I know Perl. I don't know TCL. I can (and have) patched fink. I can't patch port (and it needs patching) without a lot of work. This is highly inconvenient to me and effects my choice.
Also port == 2500 line TCL script. fink == modularized system with tests.
You'll note there's nothing GUI about port.
And TCL in general (in my highly biased and largely uninformed opinion)...
Exhibit Q, the Tcl/Tk docs. They stink. http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/
TCL seems like its going through a similar transition Perl went moving from 4 to 5. Why do I want to step backwards 10 years?
Finally there's simply the personal horror done upon my person by the crazed demon that is Storyserver which was using TCL 7 last I had to touch it back in 1998. And I've never wished to look at TCL since.
Re:Well now...
Aristotle on 2006-09-15T01:47:20
Tcl is nice roughly in the way Perl 4 was nice. I wouldn’t do much bigger things with Tcl than I would with bash, or would have with Perl 4.
