>There are at least four different ways of installing software on OS X. Download a DMG image, drag the icon from there to Applications folder, run an installer, install stuff from Mac App Store or compile it yourself. There seems to be no standard way how to do this properly. Of course, being a software dev, I ended up using the last alternative a lot.
It sounds to me like the author expects OS X to be like Linux where its UNIX underlying is the centre point of the OS. That's true to some extend, however OS X abstracts a lot away so the user don't ever necessary to have touch the UNIX part of the package. Once you understands it that way, the way of "installing" software on OS X is reduced to 2 (plus 1) for most people.
One is drag and drop an icon into somewhere in your hard drive; which is not even "installing" since what you do is simply... copy it to your local disk. Installing applications via Mac App Store simply automates this (the plus 1 part). Another one is via PKG installer; if any app does this you should be alarmed that they're modifying your system, they're going to scattered files across your system, uninstalling this thing going to be nightmare, etc.
Once you stepped into UNIX land, you're on your own. It would be nice if Apple provide a central repository of packages, but then I have to worry about outdated packages (given the nature of Apple that avoid anything with GPL/GPLv3). Homebrew has already done a great job covering that.
It sounds to me like the author expects OS X to be like Linux where its UNIX underlying is the centre point of the OS. That's true to some extend, however OS X abstracts a lot away so the user don't ever necessary to have touch the UNIX part of the package. Once you understands it that way, the way of "installing" software on OS X is reduced to 2 (plus 1) for most people.
One is drag and drop an icon into somewhere in your hard drive; which is not even "installing" since what you do is simply... copy it to your local disk. Installing applications via Mac App Store simply automates this (the plus 1 part). Another one is via PKG installer; if any app does this you should be alarmed that they're modifying your system, they're going to scattered files across your system, uninstalling this thing going to be nightmare, etc.
Once you stepped into UNIX land, you're on your own. It would be nice if Apple provide a central repository of packages, but then I have to worry about outdated packages (given the nature of Apple that avoid anything with GPL/GPLv3). Homebrew has already done a great job covering that.