Install dub with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• dub

Project history

The project describes itself as a package and build manager for D applications and libraries, with a central package registry at code.dlang.org. Its README says DUB emerged as a more general replacement for the package manager originally associated with vibe.d, then expanded from dependency management into building projects and generating IDE project files.

DUB's design center was deliberately small: a short dub.json or later package file, source in a conventional directory, and automatic dependency downloads during builds. That placed it in the same cultural slot as Cargo, npm, or Bundler, but tailored to D's compiler ecosystem and common D project layouts.

Adoption history

DUB became the normal packaging path for public D libraries because the official registry, documentation, and compiler-facing workflow all point through it. The README records broad packaging support over time, including Homebrew, MacPorts, Chocolatey, Debian/Ubuntu, Arch, Alpine, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.

Its adoption is also tied to IDE and editor integration. The project documentation notes VisualD project generation and Mono-D support for dub.json, which helped make DUB package metadata double as development-environment metadata.

How it is used

D developers use DUB to create packages, resolve dependencies, build executables and libraries, run tests, and publish packages to the D package registry. The common workflow is intentionally root-directory based: run dub from a package directory and let the package file describe dependencies and build settings.

DUB also has package-nerd value as an example of a language ecosystem build tool that grew out of a framework-specific need, then became the ecosystem-level package manager.

Why package nerds care

For package database work, DUB is a high-signal package because it is both a CLI and an ecosystem primitive: the executable is a developer tool, while the project also defines package metadata conventions for the D community.

It is historically interesting because it sits between older makefile-centric compiled-language workflows and newer language-native package managers. DUB made D packages discoverable through a central registry while still respecting multiple D compilers such as DMD, GDC, and LDC.

Timeline

• 2010s: DUB emerges from vibe.d's package-manager needs and generalizes into a package and build manager for D.
• 2010s: code.dlang.org becomes the central DUB package registry.
• 2017: DUB 1.5 and 1.6 releases appear in the GitHub release history.
• 2020s: DUB remains the documented D package/build workflow and is packaged by mainstream OS package managers.

Related projects

• vibe.d is central to DUB's origin story because DUB's README names it as the package manager that DUB generalized beyond.
• code.dlang.org is the registry side of the DUB ecosystem; VisualD and Mono-D are related development tools that consumed DUB package metadata.

Sources

• https://github.com/dlang/dub
• https://dub.pm/
• https://dub.pm/getting-started/install
• https://github.com/dlang/dub/releases