Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

sheddingbikes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 251 posts

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#11

Post by dagw »

nailer wrote: post #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 Packagin…

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

Updating a program I use should never constitute "messing" with my OS, it should constitute "using". Why should I as an OS user have to constantly worry about upsetting the OS maker? Why should I have to jump through obscure hoops just to install some software without breaking my OS?

Wouldn't a better solution be for the OS makers to wall off their magic python behind some wall where I cannot see, touch nor use it, and let me install whatever python I want without fear.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#13

Post by apgwoz »

Hilariously enough, I took the time to make sure the new config file format for m2sh was nearly perfectly backwards compatible with the old file. This is pretty funny because I predict nobody will blink an eye at the config file, even though it's basically Python.

This is an interesting point, especially given the amount of code (relatively small) actually needed to parse the subset of Python the config format uses. That said, the subset is fairly "generic scripting language" since there aren't any declarations, only assignments, lists, etc (at least at a cursory overview).

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#14

Post by cdavid »

nailer wrote: post #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 Packagin…

I am curious: how do you think virtualenv and pip would solve the issue of antiquated python ? The only thing that virtualenv does is to install packages in some temporary location, that you can throw away later without impacting anything outside python.

Virtualenv does nothing to solve those issues. I am actually wondering whether it does not even aggravates them because people think those tools magically solve backward compatibility issue (which is the underlying issue here). If something as trivial as virtualenv would solve those issues, people distributing and packaging stuff would have done something similar for ages.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#15

Post by acqq »

antileet wrote: 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…

I'd very much like to know why it wasn't easier for him to simply write a Python code that doesn't use anything not existing in 2.4.

Just because he downloaded to his computer whatever later version he likes he can't expect from all distros and all users to have exactly the same version across of all the currently running computers, it's more than unrealistic, it's simply impossible and always will be.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#16

Post by nailer »

dagw wrote: post #11
nailer wrote: post #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 Packagin…

Shit can and will break if you mess with your OS. Updating a program I use should never constitute "messing" with my OS, it should constitute "using". Why should I as an OS user have to constantly worry about upsetting the OS maker? Why should I have to jump through obscure hoops just to install some software without breaking my OS? Wouldn't a better solution be for the OS makers to wall off their magic python behind…

Firstly: no hoops are required to install any version of python or any required Python module your app needs:

* Just use pip and virtualenv. *

Your OS remains intact, and you get better deployment for free!

Replacing a component of your OS (Python 2.x) with another one (python 2.x +1 ) affects:

* The OS installer (Anaconda on RHEL, Ubuntu'sequivalent)

* The packaging system (yum)

* Many GNOME system admin apps.

* The config management tools (puppet sits on ruby)

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#17

Post by joelmichael »

I'm not sure why he concerns himself with old distros. Are they the customers for Mongrel2? The description on the website emphasizes modern web technologies.

Using Rails 3 is best with Ruby 1.9.2, and yet the only popular distros that install that via their package management system are the rolling release ones, Arch Linux and Gentoo (where it is masked). Most people willing to use this brand new software are also willing to compile their own necessary bleeding edge dependencies, and probably have a generally up-to-date distro preference (like Ubuntu).

Even the latest Debian stable, a notoriously conservative distribution, which is a year and a half old and due to be upgraded soon, uses Python 2.6. I'm not sure it's reasonable to support much past that.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#18

Post by gaius »

dagw wrote: post #11
nailer wrote: post #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 Packagin…

Shit can and will break if you mess with your OS. Updating a program I use should never constitute "messing" with my OS, it should constitute "using". Why should I as an OS user have to constantly worry about upsetting the OS maker? Why should I have to jump through obscure hoops just to install some software without breaking my OS? Wouldn't a better solution be for the OS makers to wall off their magic python behind…

In the ancient days, stuff the OS relied on was in /usr/sbin and stuff that was "yours" was in /usr/local/bin (or /opt) and stuff that no-one was quite sure whose it was was in /usr/bin. And lo, peace and harmony did reign upon the face of Unix. And the sysadmin did lie down with the developer, and it was good.

Who even knows how it works these days?

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#19

Post by joelmichael »

antileet wrote: 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…

Actually, the linked search shows 2.6.5 is the default Python package. The current version is "lucid".

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#20

Post by nailer »

gaius wrote: post #18
dagw wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit can and will break if you mess with your OS. Updating a program I use should never constitute "messing" with my OS, it should constitute "using". Why should I as an OS user have to constantly worry about upsetting the OS maker? Why should I have to jump through obscure hoops just to install some software without breaking my OS? Wouldn't a better solution be for the OS makers to wall off their magic python behind…

In the ancient days, stuff the OS relied on was in /usr/sbin and stuff that was "yours" was in /usr/local/bin (or /opt) and stuff that no-one was quite sure whose it was was in /usr/bin. And lo, peace and harmony did reign upon the face of Unix. And the sysadmin did lie down with the developer, and it was good. Who even knows how it works these days?

Stuff that belongs to the OS (but runnable by all users) is in /usr/bin. That's FHS.

Stuff that's yours is wherever dir you specified when you ran: export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs

Seriously. Use virtualenv (and virtualenvwrapper).

http://www.doughellmann.com/projects/virtualenvwrapper/

Post reply on HN