Does brew compile from source? That is one of the most frustrating aspects of macports, for example I was trying to install a simple musical ear training tool the other day and it went to compile GCC. Argh!
The thing with MacPorts is, basically, you're installing a parallel universe that doesn't know about the software your system already had. So it has to bootstrap completely from scratch, including its own toolchain, basic libraries, etc.
Once you get all that, it goes faster, but the first time you go to install something simple you're basically going to walk away for a couple hours while it sets up its own little world.
Yes, in most cases, but most packages have minimal dependencies due to Homebrew's "use what OS X provides" philosophy, i.e., the XCode toolchain (Homebrew doesn't even have a package for GCC).
