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

21–30 of 251 posts

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#21

Post by mfukar »

Python, as per Guido Van Rossum's wishes, is pushing for suspension of all language syntax and built-in changes and work towards preserving semantics, precisely for giving time to alternative implementations time to catch up with CPython, as well as the various distributions to catch up with Python's recent progress.

In short: "...have killed Python" is a hyperbole for saying "I was tired to hear people nagging about dependency on Python". Still, it's a very good thing what Shaw did.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#22

Post by [deleted] »

Twisol wrote: post #10
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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#23

Post by joelmichael »

zeemonkee wrote: post #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 thin…

CentOS is about as conservative an option as you can get, though. Unusably so, in my opinion. None of the other popular distros have packages that old.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#24

Post by dagw »

nailer wrote: post #16
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…

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…

My point is that /usr/bin/python probably shouldn't be a core OS component. /usr/bin/python should be whatever I want it to be. The core OS-component should be something like /sys/bin/centos-python which I will never directly use, touch or even necessarily know about.

The bottom line I guess is that mixing core OS components and user installed software in the same directory structure with no way of differentiating them is simply bad design.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#25

Post by vimalg2 »

zeemonkee wrote: post #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 thin…

IIRC RHEL still depends on Python 2.4 for a ton of internal administrative scripts. Nobody at Redhat wants to mess with the wiring in a working system.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#26

Post by dagw »

nailer wrote: post #20
gaius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

What about stuff that belongs to me (the sysadmin) but runnable by all users? /usr/local/bin? /opt/bin? /my/homemade/solution/bin?

There is a bunch of stuff that doesn't (shouldn't) belong to the OS, but still be runnable by all users without all of them needing a copy in their $HOME directory.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#27

Post by ubernostrum »

acqq wrote: post #15
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.

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.

This isn't an "oh, a brand-new version just now came out and it's not in the distros yet" problem. Python 2.4 is six years out of date at this point. Python 2.3, which Red Hat will support until 2012, is even older (and for the longest time Red Hat didn't even use a 2.x Python at all -- they sat on 1.5 forever).

That's simply unacceptable, and creates endless headaches for people who want to distribute software written in Python.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#28

Post by DannoHung »

acqq wrote: post #15
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.

Maybe he's got a whole shit load of code for this thing? I was able to do a 1,000 line project that was 2.4 compatible just by looking at the 2.7 docs and avoiding anything that said it was introduced in 2.5 or later.

Not fun, mind you, because I really would have rather been doing it in 2.7 or 3.1, but not impossible or even very hard.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#29

Post by dschobel »

mfukar wrote: post #21

Python, as per Guido Van Rossum's wishes, is pushing for suspension of all language syntax and built-in changes and work towards preserving semantics, precisely for giving time to alternative implementations time to catch up with CPython, as well as the various distributions to catch up with Python's recent progress. In short: "...have killed Python" is a hyperbole for saying "I was tired to hear people nagging about…

I've never heard the distro argument used by any of the python maintainers and I would be surprised if they had.

The solution to distros which are bundling three year old software is not to halt your progress for three years, that should be obvious.

Re: Mongrel2 Says, "Goodbye Python"

#30

Post by vidarh »

acqq wrote: post #15
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.

That doesn't solve his second issue, though, of user not wanting to touch something that depends on Python. Rewriting in C fixed both.
Post reply on HN