mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06I'm CTPO at Administrate, Homebrew Project Leader, ex-GitHub Principal Engineer, author of Git in Practice and an OSS and developer productivity leader.
Posting mostly automated from https://mikemcquaid.com.
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Today I’m proud to announce the release of Homebrew 5.1.0. The most significant changes since 5.0.0 are expanded brew bundle support, brew version-install, new -full formula handling and installer updates.
Would love it if people expressing strong opinions about open source declared what project(s) they’ve maintained and for how long.
Would help weed out the uninformed.
At work, you have two jobs: being good at your job, being pleasant to work with.
You can sometimes get by for a while not doing them both but it’s hard to survive doing neither.
Job security for engineers is dead.
Career security is what matters.
You build it by learning, changing, taking risks, being reliable and stepping outside your lane.
Your employer won’t prioritise your long-term career.
You should.
Andrew nails here many parts of what actually makes OSS maintaining hard work.
Empathy is needed more for OSS sustainability than money.
One of the strengths of Homebrew, despite it being unpopular, is being willing to break backwards compatibility when necessary.
NPM’s unwillingness to do so reflects GitHub’s: both show excessive caution that harm both security and usability.
This was a good read. Review is good but it does slow things down.
With async PR review, I prefer the “✅ with comments” review. Unblock the person from merging with trust they will read and resolve your comments first.
Ruby Central report reopens wounds over RubyGems repo takeover
Interviewed by The Register.
“If your project hasn’t argued about governance or money yet, it will one day. Be prepared and try to do this before it becomes a problem.”
In case you missed it in Homebrew 5.1.0 release notes: we’re doing a short user survey to inform future development.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeeNd7T0Zj9zOl8Y2MP1YITPk_qNUIP5knfCqSmOH2oB2O_UQ/viewform
Anil has a decent framework here for thinking if you’ll actually be happy in a job.
https://anildash.com/2026/01/12/will-that-job-crush-your-soul/
This was a good read and reflects my experiences. It also made me think the answer to “what do we do with juniors/students and AI” is “actually teach them software engineering best practices, not just CS fundamentals”.
Strongly agree with “The Move Faster Manifesto”.
This matches my experiences at GitHub, Homebrew, Workbrew.
You can also be fast and sustainable.
Raising kids in an addictive internet without losing your mind (or theirs)
https://mikemcquaid.com/my-parenting-screen-time-philosophy/
Great and nuanced take from creator of Redis.
If you’re still in the “these tools are useless” camp or “these tools are unethical so I won’t use them”: you’ve not understood how things have already changed.
It’s that time of year again to look at your calendar like Marie Kondo and ask:
“Does this (meeting) spark joy?”
If not: try to cancel or shorten it.
Every time you open an issue or pull request with “No description provided”, an open source maintainer dies.
I find myself referring too often to the “is it worth the time?” xkcd.
This works best when the person doing the automation is also the person saving the time.
I agree with Sean here.
The industry default seems to be “idealistic about engineering, cynical about management”.
Things work better if you’re a little cynical about both.
Great post here from Andrew, particularly on why Homebrew doesn’t need a NPM-style cooldown.
The author and I are convinced AI is net positive in engineering today but worth engaging seriously with the downsides.
https://tomwojcik.com/posts/2026-02-15/finding-the-right-amount-of-ai/
I gave a talk: Package Management Learnings from Homebrew
Homebrew 5.0.0 released in 2025. Walk through the major changes in 5.0.0, improving expectations based on other package managers and what they can learn from Homebrew's approach.
https://mikemcquaid.com/talks/package-management-learnings-from-homebrew/
“This new technology will replace developers!” is not a new thing.
Nice look at what some previous claims were (and how they resulted in more developers and more software).
https://www.caimito.net/en/blog/2025/12/07/the-recurring-dream-of-replacing-developers.html
Great take about the cultural requirements to create “10x engineers”
https://randsinrepose.com/archives/sometimes-your-job-is-to-stay-the-hell-out-of-the-way/
I gave a talk: What happened to RubyGems and what can we learn?
Lessons for non-Ruby projects on non-profits, governance, money and access in open source, drawn from the RubyGems dispute.
https://mikemcquaid.com/talks/what-happened-to-rubygems-and-what-can-we-learn/
Should be obvious but seems it’s not: don’t spam OSS maintainers or coworkers with AI code you’ve not reviewed yourself.
For coworkers only, sometimes fine explaining your testing and why reviewed isn’t necessary e.g. a one-time script.
https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-patterns/anti-patterns/
Recreating office-style pranks in a remote AI-loving world
How Homebrew Became Mac’s Package Manager with Mike McQuaid
Interviewed by Screaming in the Cloud.
I like this take on how to get promoted.
My experience has been that promotions come from finding and doing important work.
Being spoon-fed is fine for juniors but a negative signal for those seeking e.g. staff+ promotions.
https://andrew.grahamyooll.com/blog/Try-to-Take-My-Position/
Workplace politics aren’t optional. Ignoring them just hands power to someone else.
In our latest Minimum Viable Management episode, @mikemcquaid@mastodon.social and Neha Batra are joined by @deniseyu@mastodon.social to talk about political capital, allyship and how leaders and senior ICs can use influence responsibly without burning out or losing themselves.
My talk “Ruby on Guard (Rails)” from Haggis Ruby 2024 is now on YouTube.
Weird watching in hindsight when I was very much pre-AI.
If anything, AI only makes the guardrails more important and valuable.
