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 & Resources

• Mike 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.

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