Comment by simonw
3 months ago
If you are a developer who needs a specific old version of PHP or Node or whatever and you're not using Docker then I have great news for you on how you can solve your problem.
3 months ago
If you are a developer who needs a specific old version of PHP or Node or whatever and you're not using Docker then I have great news for you on how you can solve your problem.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
yes, docker is a great solution nowadays for this problem, but it wasnt always like that. In PHP land there is a tool called Laravel Valet, which relies heavily on homebrew and lets you switch PHP versions on the fly directly your system. I just remember how much of a pain it was to set up because of homebrew's unnecessary restrictions and deprecations. But once done it worked quite well.
so don't use brew at all? Great, what else should we not use?
I personally use and enjoy Homebrew for most of my development tasks. The thing I would not use it for is to exactly simulate a specific combination of tool versions.
Yes. The package manager's job is to give you some sensible version of some useful common standardized thing(s) you want to use. There might well be some legacy/current/edge options, but overall you are putting your trust in their judgement and assuming that they'll do something at least vaguely sensible.
If you want something specific than that: the package manager cannot help you here. This is no longer some random thing that you just use; it's one of your product's honest-to-goodness dependencies. You can't outsource this any more. You need to make your own arrangements to ensure that the specific version required is in use.
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