Node.js Build From Source Failed

I was attempting to move on to another of my 2011 Technology Resolutions and start working with Node.js. I have already watched several of the free Node Tuts screencasts and also messed around with Node on someone else’s machine. Now I wanted to get down and dirty with it myself. As I got the source from Github, I followed the installation instructions for the Mac but got the following error:

Build failed:  -> task failed (err #1): 
	{task: cxx platform_darwin.cc -> platform_darwin_4.o}

Well, crap. It is bad enough that getting Node up and running is still pretty painful, but now I get this very cryptic (to me) error message. The great news is that I used my Google-Fu to find out that the problem was that I had gotten the master branch of the source and that was just not going to work. So, I got the latest branch (currently the v0.4 branch) and followed the installation instruction steps again. This time it was a win.

Incidentally, I also could have just used Homebrew and installed it with the simple command:

brew install node

Next time, then 😉