Mac Dev Environment - Whether to Update Make & GCC?

Hello - I have an Intel Mac (12.6.1) and have followed various tutorials to install Ruby and Jekyll, etc. And overall things appear to be in good shape.

However, before diving into creating a Jekyll website (my first), I wanted to double check that I have the latest versions of everything. Here is the current status:

  • Ruby = 3.1.2p20 (2022-04-12 revision 4491bb740a) [x86_64-darwin21] → Up to date

  • RubyGems = 3.3.25 → Up to date

  • Bundler version 2.3.25 (2022-11-02 commit 6b0b87b1ed) → Up to date

  • Git version 2.38.1 → Up to date

  • Xcode = Version 14.1 (14B47b) → Up to date

  • Xcode Command Line Tools = Apple clang version 14.0.0 (clang-1400.0.29.202) → Up to date

  • GCC = Apple clang version 14.0.0 (clang-1400.0.29.202) → Not up to date - should be 4.4

  • Make = Make 3.81 → Not up to date - should be 4.4

As for GCC (and g++) and Make, apparently the system is using older versions installed with Xcode … This post here covers it: macos - How to make terminal use newer version of GNU make(4.3) instead of default old(3.81) one? - Stack Overflow

In particular, when I do brew info make, I get the same output as in the post’s answer. For reference, the full output is:

==> **make**: stable 4.4 (bottled)

Utility for directing compilation

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/

Conflicts with:

remake (because both install texinfo files for make)

Not installed

From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/make.rb

License: GPL-3.0-only

==> **Dependencies**

Build: **lzip** **✘**

==> **Caveats**

GNU "make" has been installed as "gmake".

If you need to use it as "make", you can add a "gnubin" directory

to your PATH from your bashrc like:

PATH="/usr/local/opt/make/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

Now, the Stack Overflow post merely says you can do this, not whether you should or how to do it either …

So my question is whether I should stick with these older versions, or if I should upgrade to the latest versions? And if upgrading is the best option, then I’ll need more step-by-step instructions on how to do it (since I’m not a programmer and the terminal output is a little sparse on details for me).

Thanks for your advice,
Jim

I’m not a mac person so not sure about this, but my suggestion would be to leave it as is assuming jekyll runs ok.

If it works don’t fix it. There are all kinds of dependencies involved, having the latest version of everything isn’t necessary or even workable sometimes. Jekyll / Ruby might just be using some tiny piece of core functionality of those things that won’t change as those things change.

If you get errors running jekyll and can trace it back to those things then I would worry about it.

I’m a Mac person :), and I’ve been running Jekyll for several years, regularly updating/upgrading to latest versions (e.g. ruby 3.1.2; jekyll 4.3.1). For me the same output obtains as for you. But: don’t worry: As it says, remake is not installed, and you don’t need it for Jekyll. So you can proceed with your first website, enjoy!