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Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

paulromer.net

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Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#161

Post by promer »

quailfarmer wrote: post #141

It’s always baffled me that the default configuration of conda takes the liberty of contaminating the default shell environment. It feels incredibly bold to assume that because I install conda I want it to exist in every context in which I use my computer. It’s the terminal equivalent to an adware “toolbar” installing itself in your browser.

Thanks for making this point. People who work on Windows may not realize how aggressive and disruptive Anaconda is on macOS. If you open a terminal and run the `lipo` command that macOS gives you to get information about a file, you will be running a version of that command that Anaconda installed, not the one that Apple manages and updates. And `lipo` is just one of many such examples.

Based on limited testing on Windows, Anaconda does not seem to do anything comparable on that OS.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#162

Post by promer »

sweeter wrote: post #28

This is insane lmao. Why not just edit out the line that added into your .zshrc (or by extension the .bashrc) instead of running through all these complicated GUI specific things just to basically rename the file so that ZSH doesn't load it when it runs a shell??? This is exactly why you should learn to use your tools properly, learn just a tiny tiny tiny bit of posix shell (which works for ALL posix shells sh, tcsh,…

FYI, I offered a comment above that might clarify. There are two questions:

1) How can we get a specific group of students who feel helpless started on the path to learning?

2) What should we teach students?

In the post linked here, I tried to be clear that these are instructions for a very specific group of students who are stuck and don't know what to do. I agree that they are not the right instructions to offer to the typical reader of this site.

The comment and the second post that it references address what we should teach.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#163

Post by echelon »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #109
dumbo-octopus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I recently had to debug my gf’s entire work computer setup getting fubar’d from installing a pip package at a user level that conflicted with the name of some package used internally by the 10k+/seat/year software the company devices have installed. Proximal cause? The installer “helpfully” failed over to installing at the user level when she didn’t have permissions to write to the place she told it to. Root cau…

Python has dogshit package management that makes java look well thought out and sane.

PYTHON @&$!!

The Python community needs to solve this ASAP. This almost weekly pain point has turned a language I used to love in college into one of my most despised languages. The fact that the ML community uses this broken platform is infuriating.

Make a Python version 4 that focuses only on fixing the packaging. 100% per-project hermeticy. No global packages whatsoever. Solve just this issue and bring the entire ecosystem on board. Kill all the various virtualenvs, the anacondas, global packages. All of it.

Learn from Rust/Cargo. That project does it mostly right (sans lack of namespaces and reproducible builds).

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#164

Post by sevensor »

orlp wrote: post #102
apetresc wrote: post #69

> 10. What Changes When You Are Free > You will not be forced to work inside something known as a “virtual environment.” Oof, this terrible advice cancels out an otherwise reasonable post. Beginners who don't know what they're doing are the last people who should be `pip install -r requirements.txt`-ing into the system Python the way this article is recommending. That's not only going to make working on multiple proj…

What I do on every dev machine is build Python from source and install it to ~/.localpython and put it in my path. Then I can pip install away care-free, and quickly run scripts / repls without having to activate an environment.

Building Python is so quick and easy I’ve built an interpreter per project in some circumstances. Sometimes more if I want to make sure it’s compatible with multiple Python versions.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#165

Post by atoav »

simonw wrote: post #89
atoav wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought a class of entirely non-tech art students how to use the commandline to run their python code within an hour and that includes distractions like people using multiple different operating systems and explai ing how paths work on each. Tech inclined students get the gist of the whole thing in less than 15 minutes. The CLI is literally just: You write a command and a thing happens. That isn't a thing that peop…

A lot of students arrive at university these days without understanding what files and folders are: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

I am aware of that. I see it as my task to make sure they leave without that material gap in their knowledge.

Somw of them might know more about files than they wish they would, e.g. the group whom I showed how to manually read broadcast wav file using a hex editor. Of course as an example to figure out where the actual data of an audio recording goes and what role metadata plays.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#166

Post by atoav »

II2II wrote: post #77
crooked-v wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything I think a pure CLI environment would be easier for a lot of people than the incomprehensible skeumorphism-less jumble of controls that a lot of GUIs have turned into. Everything is built in text and done one command at a time, so there's much less mystery compared to trying to figure out what's even a button or not.

I suspect it depends upon the person. Plenty of people have difficulty remembering commands, and only the clever ones in that population will create a cheat sheet to help them along until they do remember them. On the other hand, they may have no trouble remembering where something is or what it looks like. That said, I do resent people who claim CLIs are harder because of that. What works for one person may not work…

Idk. I am from a generation where my 12 year old peers would blindly type SMS on their Nokia number pads below the table.

I think we massively underestimate what people are able to do – if motivated. Making sure they are motivated is our task. The CLI is awesome and not just for full on nerds.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#167

Post by Eisenstein »

echelon wrote: post #163
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python has dogshit package management that makes java look well thought out and sane.

PYTHON @&$!! The Python community needs to solve this ASAP. This almost weekly pain point has turned a language I used to love in college into one of my most despised languages. The fact that the ML community uses this broken platform is infuriating. Make a Python version 4 that focuses only on fixing the packaging. 100% per-project hermeticy. No global packages whatsoever. Solve just this issue and bring the entire…

It took 10 years to force a breaking migration from Python 2 to Python 3 in order to handle Unicode...

I have resigned myself to repeatedly smashing my keyboard on the desk until it rains keys in blind rage induced frustration to let off steam and then calmly creating an issue in the appropriate repo instead of allowing even a modicum of hope that this will ever be fixed systemically.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#168

Post by promer »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #137
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach using python. You should try explaining virtual environments to students, most of them with no programming experience, or any real notion of the state of a computer system. I do, because we recommend students use them. Every class consists of endless debugging of student systems. After that you might understand the OP's viewpoint.

Not sure how helpful this advice is for students I'm in my late 30's have programming experience but had never touched Python until about 6 months ago. What made Virtual environments work for me was switching to a different Editor. I use Visual Studio Code currently it works well with Virtual Environments. When you first create a new python file in a given "project folder" it prompts you to create a new Venv and when…

This is a suggestion that deserves serious consideration. I started using VS Code after I had learned all the basics so I don't know what it feels like to be a new learner who is getting started by using VS Code. But it sounds like it worked for you. (And on campus, the proxy should not be an issue.)

It does answer the question of which text editor to use when the time comes to teach them about editing text files. For a course, it helps that it is free and available on both macOS and Windows.

I have a vague recollection that at some point I was testing without an install of Python and after I selected the Python extension for VS Code, it offered to install one for me. (I don't recall if this was on macOS or Windows and memory could be playing a trick on me.) But in any case, the people behind VS Code do seem to be trying very hard to make it easy for someone who is getting started.

I am a little uneasy about the nudges to use Copilot, but on balance, it might offer a better path for students who are getting started.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#169

Post by nox101 »

apetresc wrote: post #69

> 10. What Changes When You Are Free > You will not be forced to work inside something known as a “virtual environment.” Oof, this terrible advice cancels out an otherwise reasonable post. Beginners who don't know what they're doing are the last people who should be `pip install -r requirements.txt`-ing into the system Python the way this article is recommending. That's not only going to make working on multiple proj…

IMO what needs to happen is python needs to get rid of system installs and only work via venv. It should check the current folder for some .venv or something and auto-config itself to the current directory (or complain that you need to config with a messages like "python not configured for current folder. Run 'source bin/activate' to configure. Honestly thought that could be so much better.

The entire problem of python an venv IMO comes from it not being the default.

Re: Escaping from Anaconda's Stranglehold on macOS

#170

Post by password4321 »

someguy101010 wrote: post #140
password4321 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Nix still hard to uninstall on macOS? That's what scared me off but it's been years now...

this installer comes with an uninstaller https://install.determinate.systems/

Thanks for the link. Apparently there were issues even as recently as 4 months ago, specifically conflicts between the determinate installer and nix-darwin though I'm not sure they are intended to be used together.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40158558#40159195

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