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Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

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Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#5
Completely agree. The Linux distros (CentOS is the one I work with most, not out of choice) have antiquated Python versions.

You can get round it with virtualenv etc., and I do this as a matter of course when installing Python web applications. For a generic "plug and play" package like Mongrel2 however, where sysadmins just want something that runs straight out of apt-get or whatever, it's a pain and is holding things back.

I mean WTF does yum still require ye olde Python 2.4 ?

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#7
I understand what Zed's saying here - particularly as I came to programming from a sys admin background.

Just like Perl before it, Python (and to some extent, Ruby if you use Puppet) are part of the OS (Linux OS or OS X that is).

Shit can and will break if you mess with your OS.

You never got this with PHP because people didn't use it in their OSs.

But there's a simple solution: not only does the Ministry of Packaging want you to use virtualenv, your OS maker does too.

The faster pip and virtualenv become standard the better.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#8
Hi Zed,

Can you please elaborate with some details about how "broken" python is on systems, and the situation with python 2.4? According to the article, "recent Ubuntu releases" had broken/deprecated python installations. A quick search reveals that python 2.5 has been shipping as the default "python" meta-package(?)

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=python

Can you also please elaborate any "features" that the install was missing - are these specific modules ?(I think python's sqlite3 is missing by default on Ubuntu. I'm not too sure.) I'm not questioning you or anything, I'm just slightly concerned as we had plans to ship a Python application, and when someone experienced enough has a valid complaint, it makes sense to understand the basis behind that.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#9
post #4

Zed's pronouncements are works of art. The man is a pro. A veritable Martin Luther for our times.

Indeed. I got to the statement:

"The distros have killed Python."

Said out loud, "here we go", and settled down for some classic Zed.

Can't fault him on it, though.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#10
post #8

Hi Zed, Can you please elaborate with some details about how "broken" python is on systems, and the situation with python 2.4? According to the article, "recent Ubuntu releases" had broken/deprecated python installations. A quick search reveals that python 2.5 has been shipping as the default "python" meta-package(?) http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=python Can you also please elaborate any "features" that t…

Speaking as someone who knows practically nothing here, I think the issue is existing systems, not brand new systems. The barrier to updating an existing system becomes greater the more and the longer things depend on it.
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