It's a tool for managing environments for side-by-side installs of different versions of developer tools. Say you've got multiple projects you are working on and some need Node v18 and others Node v20 and some of each need Python 3.10 or Python 3.11 depending. You can handle switching side-by-side Node installs with a tool called nvm and there are lots for side-by-side Python switching (pyenv, pip env, conda, so many more), but maybe sometimes you want to manage both together ("this project uses Node v18 and Python 3.11"). This a tool for doing that combined development environment switching, supporting plugins for a number of ecosystems like Node and Python.
It's an alternative approach to what containers do. (Or an alternative to strict version policies such as "all Node and Python should be done with current LTS, no exceptions".)
There are similar tools on Linux, so the noteworthy thing about this one is it is Windows native.
Sure, these tools don't do much more fancy than that. The early days of pyenv was "just" a tool that output a Bash script that set PATH and PYTHONPATH and a few other environment variables.
There's still some utility in automating changing your PATH when you switch between projects: do you need to support multiple shells with different syntaxes for changing environment variables? Do you need to synchronize those shells sometimes? Do you need to change PATH for random combinations of multiple tools at once? Do you want to have a tool verify for you that you are changing PATH to refer to a version currently installed? And maybe automate installing it if isn't?
This particular tool supports a half-dozen different shells (on Windows) and a single file to setup PATH (and other environment variable changes) for any number and combination of tools all at the same time.
If you are happy with your manual PATH changes today and don't see a reason to automate them, then you might not need a tool to automate them. If you find yourself changing PATH a lot more frequently and hoping to automate it more, there are tools for that. As with anything, automation is a spectrum and what you might not do enough to automate someone else might do a lot more often than you and could use some form of automation to speed things up and/or catch easy or dumb mistakes.
> I just unpack node to different folders and set PATH. Why would I need any tool for that?
To put it simply, vfox will help you do this. Unzip node, golang, etc. to $HOME/.version-fox/cache. When you write `vfox use node@10.1.1`, it will automatically configure PATH for you. Free your hands, you don't need to think about where to download nodejs, golang, etc. runtime, nor how to configure PATH. Especially on Windows, configuring PATH is still quite troublesome.
I deal with hundreds of different repos/projects that use various versions of various runtimes and I have to switch versions sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times a week.
Why would I want to unpack an entire language runtime into ANOTHER directory when I can enter the directory and write "nvm use system"? And if I want to install a specific version of node, without having to dig around for the url on nodejs' website I write "nvm install 21.7.3" and it installs it. Then I use it.
Like, it's practically weaponized incompetence to just dig your head in the sand and not use these practically standardized tools that everyone else has been using for 15+ years. Do you dislike using package managers as well? Apt? Nix?
I don't feel like dealing with HNs terrible formatting system but this is how much work I do to install and change versions of one runtime. I deal with TONS of runtimes throughout the week.
Also this is just one runtime, I also have to deal with python, ruby, go, terraform and many other versions so these "aggregate" runtime version managers like asdf etc are awesome.
######
-> (base) workspace nvm list
-> system
iojs -> N/A (default)
node -> stable (-> N/A) (default)
unstable -> N/A (default)
-> (base) workspace nvm use system
Now using system version of node: v21.7.3 (npm v10.5.0)
-> (base) workspace nvm install 21.7.3
Downloading and installing node v21.7.3...
Downloading https://nodejs.org/dist/v21.7.3/node-v21.7.3-darwin-arm64.ta......
############################################################################################################################################################ 100.0%
Computing checksum with sha256sum
Checksums matched!
Suppose you have one project that only works with the newest Node 20, and another only works with Node versions 16-18. So you want a tool that takes care of installing both versions and gives you an easy way to switch between them, either globally or only for the current shell. Maybe with some autodetection via config files that can be put in the project folder.
That's basically this. But not bespoke for node (like nvm) or python (like pyenv) or protobuf, but as one tool that promises to do this for all your tools
Curious what your experience is. I'm guessing there are dev cultures where tooling versions never have to change across projects, which has its pros and cons.
For most of my career at large tech orgs working with node.js/frontend stack, python, go, and even java, I always needed things like conda, nvm, etc...
Heck, even working with C (and CUDA), I would love to have an easy way to switch system-wide C/CXX compiler versions.
You are working on project A, and project B. Project A uses python 2.6, project B uses python 3. You want a simple way to switch back and forth without reinstalling everything every time you switch between them. This setups a way to quickly and if I'm understanding correctly automatically switching between the two versions of the tool.
Replace python with many other tools from Java, node, etc.
Thanks for asking the question I am perpetually too embarrassed to ask. As somebody who spends 95% of my time doing native mobile, I rarely have to think about this problem. I'm sure "runtime version manager" resolves to a specific idea for most people, but it was too general for me to know what it was referring to, even after reading the elevator pitch (my first thought was: like Docker?).
This happens to me all the time. I wasn't formally educated and didn't spend my formative years around computer people. So I have holes in my knowledge and misunderstand parlance if it's not specific to my personal 10% of the software world. E.g. in the beginning, it took me a few years to realize that when people say "frontend", they virtually always mean web frontend.
