I still use macports! As for why, there are a couple of reasons.
First, Macports is often the fastest at updating their ports database after new versions of an upstream are released. Next, I also like that Macports doesn't really rely on anything OS-X specific except for Xcode. So I don't need to worry about crap like whether some Python package will work with Apple's Python distribution, or whether installing a new version of Openssh will break any core Mac OS components.
> I don't need to worry about crap like whether some Python package will work with Apple's Python distribution
This is exactly why I use Macports. Everything lives in a parallel universe of /opt. This means the first few packages you install take WAY long as they pull in a ton of dependencies; Homebrew avoids this by relying on stuff already installed by the system. But the up-front cost pays off in the long run (IMO) since you face fewer issues with breakage. OS X can update its userland tools and you generally don't care.
This is also exactly why i use MacPorts. It works. It doesn't do silly stuff. It's been consistently solid for years.
Today, i got into a fight with Homebrew because i wanted to use a second user account on my laptop. I have one primary account, and another i use when doing workshops with clients, so i don't accidentally show them my sekrit files. The only way to get brew to install things without making trouble was to sudo -i to my primary account in a shell.
Don't get me started on "brew install docker" vs "brew cask install docker".
That said, 'sudo port upgrade git' has been failing for me for about a day now, because none of the archives have 2.10.1. I see this sort of thing occasionally, and it's annoying, but not really obstructive.
> That said, 'sudo port upgrade git' has been failing for me for about a day now, because none of the archives have 2.10.1. I see this sort of thing occasionally, and it's annoying, but not really obstructive.
You are probably using on old version of OS X that does not yet support TLS 1.2. Therefore system's libcurl cannot talk to https://kernel.org anymore, which got very strict recently. As a workaround, you can download the tarball manually with your browser and place it into /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/git/.
Macports doesn't really rely on anything OS-X specific except for Xcode
And that's a big problem right there, I don't use xcode and its also a 15GB install!, so a waste to my small 128GB ssd.
Not to mention you will get nagging updates of a huge app you don't use, which takes lots of time to download and install.
Why doesn't macports make their pkg manager work just with the xcode cli tools? and for those pkgs that need xcode, tell the user they need to install xcode first.
First, Macports is often the fastest at updating their ports database after new versions of an upstream are released. Next, I also like that Macports doesn't really rely on anything OS-X specific except for Xcode. So I don't need to worry about crap like whether some Python package will work with Apple's Python distribution, or whether installing a new version of Openssh will break any core Mac OS components.