Hacker News Reader

Because your average Unix program will basically spread itself all over your system, and is nearly impossible to remove. I don't want to pollute all my system directories with random gunk.

Keeping things in containers keeps it from making a mess, and that alone makes it worth it, to say nothing about the advantages for handling dependencies or running multiple copies or versions.

View on HN

The original issue is about Postgres.app which very deliberately _doesn’t_ spread itself all over your system.

your average unix program, esp. something like postgres which has been developed for literally decades, will basically spread itself into well defined compile-time locations which are easily removed by any competent package manager or even competent manual build (touch package.stamp && make install && find $prefix -cnewer -type f package.stamp > package.file-list )

It's only 'random' if you don't know what you are doing. Containers are fine and often good, but their existence/availability doesn't 'supercede' real knowledge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com