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macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

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Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#431

Post by lone_haxx0r »

ken wrote: post #393
Gaelan wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re overthinking this. The vast majority of Ruby/Python programmers have been installing their own copies themselves, because Apple was pretty slow in updating them (Ruby is usually a few minor releases behind, Python is still 2.7 IIRC). People will just keep doing that, and nothing will change. They may or may not be moving off Unix, but this isn’t evidence of that.

This alone isn't evidence of that, but it's not the only data point we have. We've got 20 years of observations. They dropped X11 (and didn't use it for the main display in the first place), created new process APIs (like GCD and background tasks), deprecated standard libraries like OpenGL (and don't support Vulkan), designed their own programming language, etc. All of these point in the same direction. What will be…

> They dropped X11

You don't have to be anti-unix to do that though, any reasonable organization would have done the same. I agree with the rest though.

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#432

Post by znpy »

knolan wrote: post #360
ken wrote: post #76

Not surprising at all. It's become clear that what they've been doing with iOS all along is bootstrapping a new operating system. They started with Unix, not because Unix was optimal for what they wanted to do, but it's what they had and it worked well enough. Copland and Taligent and the rest failed because of Second-System Effect, which Apple was smart enough to avoid. (As RMS wrote in 1983, "Unix is not my ideal s…

I disagree. MacOS is hugely popular in academia. A significant amount of researchers use MacBooks as it allows them to have the best of both worlds by having a machine that runs MS Office for preparing proposals and dealing with Admin as well as a UNIX system that lets them ssh into whatever workstation or cluster they’re running jobs on. Sure Windows is catching up in this regard but MacOS has had the advantage of b…

This. I've asked a macbook at work specifically for this.

I can have an Unix workstation while still being able to run Outlook, Excel and Powerpoint.

I don't want to use Windows and I don't want to use that pile of crap that LibreOffice is... The mac was a good compromise for me.

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#433

Post by Aissen »

Traster wrote: post #271
TimTheTinker wrote: post #192

I think this is great, but at the same time, auto-installing homebrew ought to be an option (perhaps enabled by default) when installing the “XCode command line tools”. Better yet, offer a “developer setup” app that sets up the command line tools, homebrew, iTerm2, updated bash/zsh, and more. Apple would do best to pave the cow paths developers have already worn into macOS, especially when it comes to command line ut…

I think the second you start auto-favouring one particular tool you're in trouble. Why iTerm2? Why not Alacritty? iTerm2 is more popular now, but 5 years down the line when someone else has come up with a iTerm2 replacement how is Apple meant to decide to switch? Where does Apple draw the line on which tools to add and which to leave out? It sounds like what you're really asking for is something like Ninite for mac,…

They already favored ruby, python and perl over other (less popular) interpreted languages. Ditto for favoring bash, then zsh, etc.

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#434

Post by em500 »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #415
em500 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What command-line programming language interpreters are left when those are removed? zsh/bash/ksh93, tcsh, awk, sqlite3, elisp (assuming emacs survives for now) and javascript console. I don't know why you'd want to limit things to pre-installed command line interpreters though. > You have the shell itself, but that’s hardly enough to write anything cool. What kind of cool things do you envision the curious beginne…

> What kind of cool things do you envision the curious beginner to write, using only the current preinstalled Python/Ruby/perl, that they can't do with the remaining interpreters that I mentioned? What about the iconic 4th grader "greetings and cool things" script? Here's something like what it looked like for me (on the IBM PC in my classroom): 5 CLS 7 RANDOMIZE TIMER 10 PRINT "Hello there. I'm a computer. What is y…

    clear
    echo "Hello there. I'm a computer. What's your name?"
    read G
    echo "Hello $G. You are welcome to computer land."

    while true
    do
    echo ""
    echo "What would you like to do today?"
    echo "1) Say something random"
    echo "2) Make a maze"
    echo "3) Exit"
    echo "Enter your selection"
    read S
      if [ "$S" = "1" ]; then
        say $( head -n $((7*RANDOM)) /usr/share/dict/words | tail -n 1 )
      elif [ "$S" = "2" ]; then
        for i in {1..3000}; do
          if (($RANDOM>16384)); then printf '/'; else printf '\'; fi
        done
      elif [ "$S" = "3" ]; then
        echo "Bye."
        exit 
      else 
        echo "Try again." 
      fi
    done
This doesn't seem much different than the BASIC example to me. I think only the lack of GOTO in shell scripts makes this look slightly more complicated (requiring either putting all the statements in the if ... elif parts or defining functions).

I honestly don't see how a Python or Ruby version would be much better than a shell version for this. Perhaps you can show by example?

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#435

Post by em500 »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #425
TimTheTinker wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of cool things do you envision the curious beginner to write, using only the current preinstalled Python/Ruby/perl, that they can't do with the remaining interpreters that I mentioned? What about the iconic 4th grader "greetings and cool things" script? Here's something like what it looked like for me (on the IBM PC in my classroom): 5 CLS 7 RANDOMIZE TIMER 10 PRINT "Hello there. I'm a computer. What is y…

Another of my favorites -- this was fun in middle school (years 6-8) when I had a spare minute or two to sit down at a random computer (maybe in a computer lab). 10 SCREEN 9 20 CLS 30 COLOR 1, INT(RND*10) 40 SOUND 20+(RND*5000),.2 50 GOTO 30 The effect is rather striking, like someone must have really messed up the computer. My main gripe with Windows NT was that it would go back to the NT screen saver -- I couldn't…

How would you do this on macOS with just the built-in Python or Ruby?

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#436

Post by grumpydba »

Sharparam wrote: post #387
grumpydba wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's interesting to me that this is happening in the same month that Microsoft made installing modern Python as easy as typing Python and then clicking "install". You still need admin rights and an internet setup. Linux is still king.

On what system can you install python without Internet access?

On Linux you don't need to install it it is there by default on all major distros.

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#437

Post by gsnedders »

ardy42 wrote: post #181
ken wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But macOS uses '/' as a directory separator already. They're not going to arbitrarily change trivia like that -- at least, not short of killing the concept of a filesystem altogether. (True, if anyone was going to do that, Apple would, but APFS is brand new. That's not going anywhere.) Apple isn't changing things just for the sake of change. They're removing 1970's-isms where they hold back the platform. Languages li…

> But macOS uses '/' as a directory separator already. IIRC, HFS actually uses a ':'.

Pretty sure HFS doesn't actually store any directory separator. A directory, after all, is just another file, each one containing its own children. Classic Mac OS used ":" when it needed to use something as a path separator.

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#438

Post by tekknik »

maxsilver wrote: post #386
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was someone who installed the first beta of Windows that included this, just to try it out for Rails. It had LOTS of problems. I filed bugs. I kept trying over the next couple of versions, and finally gave up. I tried it again a few months ago, and, again, ran into a show-stopping problem of some sort, and gave up again. Are you saying that you use it "in anger" for serious development, and have no issues? People c…

I use WSL (without anger) for serious development, for about two years now and have had almost no issues. Running 'Pengwin' (Debian) Linux via WSL, RVM using Ruby 2.4.1 + Rails 5.1.7 and Ruby 2.6.2 + Rails 6.0.0.beta3 Today, everything works just as expected, right out of the box with no effort. This includes ActiveRecord (to SQLite, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL), including Node.js / Asset Pipeline, Prawn PDF and ImageMag…

except when you install a native module in WSL and then try to run it from CMD. WSL is no different than having a headless VM and comes with all of the problems of one

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#439

Post by tekknik »

kowdermeister wrote: post #388
ffdjjjffjj wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which companies are actually doing RoR development on Windows? Do they also deploy to Windows Server (?) in production? I guess I live in multiple bubbles because I’ve worked for tech companies in several different major metros and I’ve never heard of this as a mainstream thing.

It is not like that. My point is that there's a barrier to entry to RoR that you should own a Mac. I gave up because my home setup is Windows based and I won't change it for the sake of a hyped framework or tool. But none of this is surprising considering where RoR is coming from, I'm not sad or upset about it either :)

it seems like you’re blaming RoR for a problem that is actually due to windows being “different”. almost every OS besides windows is a nix or nix clone and POSIX compliant or certified. so who’s really the problem here?

Re: macOS deprecating scripting language runtimes, including Python, Ruby, and Perl

#440

Post by TimTheTinker »

skohan wrote: post #430
TimTheTinker wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you? Because a potentially interested 4th grader likely won't ever know such a thing exists. And even if she did, the teacher likely won't let her download and install it from the internet. But if she asks for permission to run a "Install Command Line Tools" app in /Applications/Utilities/ and check the "Install homebrew…

In my experience kids are very tech-savy. I don't think the 4th grader who can't discover homebrew without a system setting for it is going to be able to do much with it once they've got the terminal open.

Kids can only get savvy with exposure. Those lacking certain privileges (like having a computer at home) likely haven’t had any of that exposure.

I was only able to learn BASIC and the DOS command prompt because I was in a multi grade classroom, and an older boy (5th grader) whose mother paid for him to have programming lessons taught me on the classroom computer.

The teacher had no clue about any of that... she only knew I started spending “too much time” on the computer.

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