Perhaps interestingly, I've had some similar complaints about package managers like homebrew.
I've noticed over the last decade that a certain level of knowledge about building from source seems harder to find via search or engaging in a community forum/chat. The assumption is often that everyone will be using the package manager (I'd say that's especially true on macOS, but it might be an artifact of me spending more time there since it's been my most used dev machine), so if you have trouble building something, the answer will frequently be "just use homebrew -- whoever maintains the formula will already have solved your problems for you."
There's two problems with this: first, that's presumably true for the source build, and if you can hit a case that the source build doesn't work for, chances are pretty good you can hit a case that brew doesn't work for (my experience is that more often than not they go together). Second... I'm happier to use package managers for applications meant to live on my machine and never go live elsewhere (heaven knows there's lots of stuff I just want to install and get on with my life rather than fiddle with), but for applications I'm deploying, it seems to me it's generally wise if someone involved in the project has a picture of the build details and dependency graphs in their head.
Some of the automation we're throwing at operations is really convenient. It's not simple, though. And depending on how much forethought is put into it, I'm starting to think of it as ... maybe not technical debt, but a technical credit card which is super convenient at times, but also can easily become debt if you're not careful with it.
I never installer homebrew on any mac I develop. When you see all the possibilities to customize projects, it's just ridiculous to want to build something with a one-liner and expect it will take thousand of decisions for you.
I've noticed over the last decade that a certain level of knowledge about building from source seems harder to find via search or engaging in a community forum/chat. The assumption is often that everyone will be using the package manager (I'd say that's especially true on macOS, but it might be an artifact of me spending more time there since it's been my most used dev machine), so if you have trouble building something, the answer will frequently be "just use homebrew -- whoever maintains the formula will already have solved your problems for you."
There's two problems with this: first, that's presumably true for the source build, and if you can hit a case that the source build doesn't work for, chances are pretty good you can hit a case that brew doesn't work for (my experience is that more often than not they go together). Second... I'm happier to use package managers for applications meant to live on my machine and never go live elsewhere (heaven knows there's lots of stuff I just want to install and get on with my life rather than fiddle with), but for applications I'm deploying, it seems to me it's generally wise if someone involved in the project has a picture of the build details and dependency graphs in their head.
Some of the automation we're throwing at operations is really convenient. It's not simple, though. And depending on how much forethought is put into it, I'm starting to think of it as ... maybe not technical debt, but a technical credit card which is super convenient at times, but also can easily become debt if you're not careful with it.