Homebrew, everything you need

I am a Mac OS X user. I like my OS and I love how I can install/remove applications just with a drag'n drop. But some useful programs can't be find and this could be very annoying. Command-line programs like netcat or sdl-config or chocolate-doom still haven't a Mac OS X package.



Well, you can use Macports, a package management system like BSD's ports. But it's a bit hard to configure and somebody says it's a bit intrusive.
So, if you're looking for a small e good package-manager for your Macintosh, the answer is to install Homebrew. Installing it it's very simple: just copy-and-paste this line on a terminal

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"

Wait to download and run Homebrew's script and it's all.

To install netcat just type

brew install netcat

to find a package containing a word

brew search doom

returns chocolate-doom.

Homebrew has many options as you can read from its man page. I suggest you to give it a try: it's powerful and isn't too intrusive. It's not a replacement for Macintosh packages, but a support. I installed it to compile SDL programs à-la UNIX, simplifying a lot my tasks.
Take a look and give it a try. And, if it's not enough, use Fink or Macports :)

Update 15 November 2011

I tried unsuccesfully to install FFMpeg and CLisp using Homebrew: there are bugs in these formulas. So I must suggest you to don't use homebrew for critical tasks. It doesn't seem mature enough.