This is an update to a previous post about configuring my OSX environment to play nicely with my existing makefiles.
According to this link, there should be pre-compiled "bottles" for most everything that can be installed with Homebrew. There was even a SHA256 hashsum listed for a bottle in the formula for GCC. As far as I can remember, I did not meet any of the criteria listed under which Homebrew would not use a precompiled bottle. It's not really that big a deal, but if I ever have to install something in the future that I know is a significant project to compile (I was of course vaguely aware of this about GCC), then I might take the time to try to ensure that I can get a precompiled version.
But is it a good use of time?
What occurs to me though, is that I can do other things while software compiles. I can fire up another terminal or even hop over to another computer to try and get some work done if necessary. Time that I spend troubleshooting this specific problem is just time down the rabbit hole. It's probably not important in the larger scheme of things as long as "it just works" one way or another.
As a response to a blog post by a friend of mine, I've got a post about time management in the draft stage, so thinking about whether or not specific activities are a good use of my time has been more on my mind recently. I think that in the end, figuring out why Homebrew didn't work exactly as expected is probably not a priority given limited time resources. This unfortunately creates some cognitive dissonance for me, because my natural inclination is to want to keep digging until I've solved the problem. It bugs me if something isn't working as it should be... I'll have to content myself with remembering that life isn't perfect and that I can't have everything I want.
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