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The Homebrew and Python setup scripts try to put their own bin directories ahead of the system ones, so that for example python invokes Pyenv. But this doesn't work right, and these directories end up after the system ones.

Expected behavior

The homebrew_setup.sh adds this line to .zshenv:

export PATH=/Users/me/homebrew/bin:${PATH}

and then python_setup.sh adds this line to .zshenv:

eval export PATH="/Users/me/.pyenv/shims:${PATH}"

The idea being that after .zshenv runs, PATH should be something like:

/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v16.13.0/bin:/Users/me/.pyenv/shims:/bin:/Users/me/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Current behavior

In practice, though, when Zsh starts up it first sources our .zshenv but then sources /etc/profile, which on Big Sur contains this line:

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
	eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

which has the effect of moving the system paths back to the front:

% export PATH=/Users/me/.pyenv/shims:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
% echo $PATH
/something:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
% eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
% echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/me/.pyenv/shims

This means that e.g. running python chooses the wrong thing:

% which python
/usr/bin/python

(related SO question)

Proposed fix

I think perhaps we should move our path manipulation to .zshrc, instead of .zshenv, to avoid this rewriting. @willbarton or others who are more familiar with Zsh: would this have any negative side effects?

Right now if we chose to reset Homebrew, the homebrew_setup.sh script will use Homebrew's own uninstall script.

Then if it proceeds to try to install it again, it will try to mkdir homebrew && ..., and the mkdir will fail because the Homebrew uninstall doesn't appear to remove that directory.

Probably need to move the dotfile copying up in the script.

When installing PostgreSQL via Homebrew, an error about a missing perl.h file:

After running ./mac_setup.sh, I had a warning that DEV_HOSTS was not set and whether I wanted to continue y/n. I selected no and the script continued…