Setup Mac for Development Purposes

Motivation

Because a software developer needs to “power up” from time to time, by installing even better tools, or setting up existing tools the better way (i.e. using package managers).

Pre-requisites

NOTE: Obviously already installed, but for archival purposes, they are listed below.

Install XCode command line tools

On Mavericks, the command is:

$ xcode-select --install

Install Homebrew

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Homebrew package maintenance

Commands to run from time to time to keep the formulae “fresh”:

$ brew doctor

$ brew update
$ brew outdated
$ brew upgrade <outdated_formulae>

$ brew cleanup -s --force

Install Homebrew Cask

For installing and managing OS X apps that are distributed as binaries. Just type on the command line instead of dragging and dropping stuff.

$ cd $( brew --prefix )
$ brew install caskroom/cask/brew-cask

List all available casks:

$ brew cask search

Install a cask

$ brew cask install <cask>

NOTE: Some examples include Google Chrome, Dropbox, iTerm2, Vagrant, Virtualbox, Transmission, VLC etc.

List installed casks

$ brew cask list

Install zsh

Install zsh from Homebrew:

$ brew install zsh

If OS X complains about zsh being a non-standard shell:

$ sudo vim /etc/shells

    # List of acceptable shells for chpass(1).
    # Ftpd will not allow users to connect who are not using
    # one of these shells.
    
    ...
    /bin/zsh
    /usr/local/bin/zsh

Set zsh as default shell:

$ chsh -s `which zsh`

Customise zsh

I use oh-my-zsh for now.

$ git clone git://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git ~/.oh-my-zsh
$ cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.orig
$ cp ~/.oh-my-zsh/templates/zshrc.zsh-template ~/.zshrc

Set the theme (I use muse for now):

$ vim ~/.zshrc

    ...
    ZSH_THEME="muse"
    ...

Include whatever plugins you fancy:

$ vim ~/.zshrc

    ...
    plugins=(brew brew-cask git history history-substring-search jsontools mvn python ruby rvm vagrant web-search)
    ...

Further improvements

Use dotfiles. The lack of clean method to revert to original settings when things go wrong kind of discourages me to try them out for the time being. Obviously I have made small customisations to my Vim dotfile, but nothing like a full-scale customisation to various dotfiles to level up your geek-fu.

References

Published

22 June 2014