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What is brew and why you need is on your macOS device

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Brew is a package manager for macOS. It simplifies the installation and updating of macOS applications.

Brew allows you to install your favourite apps with a few clicks. In addition, Brew makes it easy to manage your app dependencies. Brew automatically resolves and installs any dependencies that an application may have when it is installed.

It is thus easy to keep your applications up-to-date and to ensure that you have all necessary dependencies installed. Brew is also an excellent means of discovering new macOS applications. Browse through a list of popular apps and install them with just a few clicks using Brew. This makes it easy to discover new applications that you might not have known about otherwise.

How to install & use the Brew package manager

A website called brew.sh hosts the brew package manager. You can install brew by running the following commands in your terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2) Once brew has been installed, you can use it to install your preferred macOS applications. To install an app with brew, simply type:

brew install

3) Brew will automatically resolve and install any dependencies the application may have. Therefore, it is easier to keep your applications up to date and ensure that all of the necessary dependencies are installed.

4) You can also update your macOS applications using brew. To update an application, type:

brew upgrade

Tab complete on Linux

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

NOTE: Sorry if this is a more technical article and not for general consumption.

Tab complete is the magic wand of any Linux magician and I am surprised every time I see users ignoring it.

Shorthand for system commands

Let’s say I want to type ifconfig, if I enter ifc and then press the TAB button, Linux will autocomplete the rest of the command for me

This trick can work for any app or command. If I want to start firefox, I just have to enter fire (since there is no Linux command that starts with fire) the system will autocomplete to Firefox.

Find command syntax

It can be useful to complete system commands by tapping TAB twice. As an example, if I write SUDO APT- and press tab twice it will list all the possible commands starting with APT.

Autocomplete file name

Let’s say you have a long file name like thisIsALongFileNameThatwouldBeDifficultToType565464654.txt and obviously want to save time, you just have to enter rnough text to make the file unique identifiable (e.g. thisI) and then pressing tab will autocomplete the rest for you. In this casem if I want to display the contents of the text file, I could enter

cat this [then press tab]

the system will autocomplete it for me.