Homebrew

Homebrew calls itself The missing package manager for macOS and is an essential tool for any developer.

Installation

Before you can run Homebrew you need to have the Command Line Tools for Xcode installed. It include compilers that will allow you to build things from source, and if you are missing this it's available through the App Store > Updates.

To install Homebrew run the following: terminal, hit Enter, and follow the steps on the screen:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

One thing you need to do is tell the system to use programs installed by Hombrew (in /usr/local/bin) rather than the OS default if it exists. You do this by adding /usr/local/bin to your PATH environment variable (if you're using zsh you should use .zshrc instead of .bash_profile):

$ echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Alternatively, you can also insert /usr/local/bin to the first line of /private/etc/paths and reboot the Mac to change global paths loading order. Admin password may be required if you modify the file.

To be able to use brew you need to start a new terminal session. After that you should make sure everything is working by running:

$ brew doctor