Any plans for a Dexter release for Intel Macs?

[alvinkatojr]

Hello Dexter team,

What would you like to see?

A Dexter release for Intel Macs.

Why?

The homebrew tap formula for Dexter produces a no url error because Dexter only has ARM releases designed for the M series of MacBooks. This is a design restriction on your part and not necessarily a hardware one because I'm using Dexter on an Intel Mac.

Interestingly, I came to find out about Dexter via Zed Editor, which would always produce errors stating Dexter was missing, even when I was using other Elixir language servers.

So by providing an Intel release, you would make it easier for other Intel Mac/Zed Editor users who are probably facing the same error.

Alternatives considered

To get Dexter installed and working locally on my Intel Mac, I patched my local homebrew tap formula to use a normal Dexter release and built it from source, using go-build.

Surprisingly, I didn't even need mise to install the dependencies. Which means that it's possible to make it easier to build Dexter from source for users like me, even if you do not end up making an Intel release.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this. Thanks in advance!

[JesseHerrick]

Hi @alvinkatojr, thanks for the issue! This is a limitation with the GitHub Actions runner not being available for Intel Macs, which means we can't automatically build releases for it (last I tried it). I also don't have an Intel Mac to build the releases myself on. If you'd like to have your hand at a PR to improve the actions runner (maybe I missed something), you're welcome to give it a try.

As you saw, the main option here is to either build from source or let Mise or ASDF do it for you. Once you build from source, all you need to do is move the binary into your PATH and you're golden. And if you build using Mise or ASDF, you don't even need to do that step. It is correct that Mise is not necessary at all here, it's just there for convenience.

[alvinkatojr]

Hi @JesseHerrick, thanks for the prompt response and the 411 on the lack of runners for Intel Macs. I had no idea that they were discontinued, so unfortunately, any path involving official releases seems to be a dead end for now.

In place of a PR for improving the actions runner, I've submitted a PR for building Dexter from source for Intel Macs on the Dexter homebrew tap formula. With this option, there is no need to move the binary anywhere, since Homebrew automatically does it for you. The only dependency is go.

Please take a look(or have someone else do it) and let me know what you think. Thanks in advance!

[JesseHerrick]

Hi @alvinkatojr, I haven't forgotten about this! I'm planning on some Dexter work later this week and will review properly then. Thanks again for this change!