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Absolutely.

You'll probably run across a lot of web sites recommending older package managers like MacPorts and Fink, just because they've been around for a long time.

YMMV, but I (and many others) find Homebrew superior in every respect.

I thought the main difference wasn't age, but that macports installs it's own version of binaries that are already on the system (e.g. python or ruby).

This means that if apple changes the binary in the OS, you don't risk breaking the dependency tree.

If there's a way to do this in homebrew, please let me know! I'd like to switch over, and this is the one thing keeping me with macports.

I installed MacPorts for these. What is really the difference between them?

Before you do this.

Make sure to install XCode from the App Store and then goto XCode->Preferences->Downloads and install the "Command Line Tools".

You can install the command line tools without XCode if you download them from the Apple Developer site.

I did it, but I can't find anywhere what tools are being installed.

Is this documented somewhere or alternatively how can I inspect the downloaded archive to learn about its content?