Distributing Your CLI with Homebrew: Tips from Mike McQuaid - RUBY 678

In this episode of Ruby Rogues, I sit down with Mike McQuaid, lead maintainer of Homebrew, to talk all about building and distributing CLIs. We dig into the practical steps for turning small scripts into reliable command-line tools, why Ruby is a great starting point, and when you might want to reach for Go or Rust instead.We also explore the challenges of distributing CLIs across macOS, Linux, and Windows, why Homebrew remains one of the easiest ways to ship software, and the importance of testing CLIs from the outside in. Plus, Mike and I discuss how AI is transforming the developer workflow—from Copilot PR reviews to agent-based coding—and what that means for both seniors and juniors in today’s industry.Links & ResourcesMike McQuaid’s Website – Mike’s talks, articles, and contact info.Homebrew – The missing package manager for macOS (and Linux).Bundler Inline – Running dependencies inside a Ruby script.Hyperfine – CLI benchmarking tool.Cursor – AI-powered code editor.GitHub Copilot – AI pair programmer.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ruby-rogues--6102073/support.

Check out RailsClips! 02:44 - Alex Wood IntroductionTwitter GitHub03:09 - Trevor Rowe IntroductionTwitterGitHub03:26 - What is offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS)?Elastic BeanstalkOpsWorksAlex's RailsConf 2015 Workshop06:48 - Setup and Taking Incremental Steps (The Cloud as a Paradigm)Identity and Access Management“Make sure everything works”12:19 - CloudFormation Toolingaws-sdk-ruby15:19 - Data-Centric Services (Monitoring, Traceability, Visibility)CloudFormationS3CloudFrontSimple Email Service (SES)Simple Queuing Service (SQS)Simple Notification Service (SNS)DynamoDBAWS LambdaAmazon EC2 Container ServiceLoggingCloudTrailCloudWatchCloudWatch Logs23:48 - When to Use What (Getting Started)Simplicity vs Control26:07 - Making Apps Run Better, General OptimizationsRoute 5333:43 - Implementing AWS“Eat the elephant one bite at a time”37:15 - SecurityCreating Visibility Without Opening an SSH Port    CloudWatchCloudWatch LogsRunning Inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)Why doesn’t security happen?47:51 - Maintaining and Continually Improving Within Teams (Scalability)56:33 - AWS ResourcesAWS Official BlogAWS Ruby Development Blog[GitHub] AWS  Picks Interview with Laurent Bossavit of the 10X Programmer and other Myths in Software Engineering (Jessica) Paracord (Chuck) Alex's RailsConf 2015 Workshop (Alex) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (Alex) Kalzumeus Podcast (Alex) Gitter (Trevor) AWS Ruby Development Blog (Trevor)Special Guests: Alex Wood and Trevor Rowe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ruby-rogues--6102073/support.