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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

#311

Post by em500 »

kccqzy wrote: post #233
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What newbie will start with Python 2.7 at this point in time? Most books and tutorials are updated for Python 3. The default Python 2.7 interpreter from macOS is useless for newbies, it does more harm than good by confusing them.

The young, bored but smart kid in an elementary or middle school tinkering with her computer and finding something to do. She doesn't need a book or a tutorial to tell her the "right" way. She experiments, only guided by her curiosity.

There still Swift Playground, Safari JS console, not to mention old fashioned zsh/bash/ksh to tinker with. The part where the removal of the default macOS Python/Ruby/perl (which don't even have autocompletion) kills her curiosity seems far fetched.

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

#312

Post by tempodox »

JohnBooty wrote: post #104
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…

They've got enough market clout now that people will port Ruby/Python/Perl to a non-Unix macOS, just as they port them to Microsoft Windows. Ruby on Windows is a nightmare. To be specific, Ruby itself (the core language and core libraries) are pretty good on Windows. Great choice for a scripting language, or whatever else you want to do. But libraries like ActiveRecord, Rails and their myriad dependencies are very ve…

> Ruby on Windows is a nightmare.

Any software on Windows is a nightmare. Nothing works as it should, least of all MS's own crapware.

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

#313

Post by t0astbread »

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…

Weird, I thought the Unix-likeness was a huge selling point of macOS ("the most user-friendly Unix on the market")

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

#314

Post by skohan »

saagarjha wrote: post #287
coldtea wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. Not sure what you mean here, but I don't think that's something you don't get, or can't get, on Terminal.app. In fact, that's the default...

If you have a command that doesn't print a new line, the prompt normally ends up on the same line as the output of the last command. iTerm can "fix" this.

See this is where I would rather have my terminal obey the program rather than imposing its own behavior. IMO a good terminal should be extremely minimal, and anything extra should be opt-in.

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

#315

Post by swebs »

bnt wrote: post #215
oarsinsync wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple hasn't been great at encouraging programming among kids You should check out what they’ve been doing for years with Swift Playgrounds on the iPad

But that's teaching a new generation of coders a set of tools designed only for Apple. Ruby (Python etc) are open and easily available on other platforms, Swift may be in the future but it isn't now.

Huh? You can download Ubuntu builds right on their site

https://swift.org/download/

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

#316

Post by skohan »

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,…

Yeah I don't see the need for any of this to be provided by Apple. I want the platform I'm working on to be minimal and agnostic, and let me worry about what tools I'm using and how.

If there's really demand for some kind of base developer toolkit, why not leave it up for a 3rd party to put together some kind of installer to set it all up for you?

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

#317

Post by zelos »

em500 wrote: post #241
jasonkester wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s right though. When I was six years old, learning to program involved turning on the computer and typing 10 print “hello” run That’s what I want for my kids. And there’s nothing even remotely like it in today’s world.

Open Terminal $ echo "hello" seems pretty much the same to me. Even on Windows you can open the browser console and do > console.log("hello") Just for teaching basic prints, variables, loops and functions, terminal bash on macOS/Linux or Javascript console work just as well as Commodore 64 BASIC. The problem is not that the environment is not available or setup is too difficult. The problem is that there's now way mo…

Teaching bash scripting as an introduction to programming? Surely there are laws against that kind of cruelty?

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

#318

Post by Stratoscope »

JohnBooty wrote: post #104
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…

They've got enough market clout now that people will port Ruby/Python/Perl to a non-Unix macOS, just as they port them to Microsoft Windows. Ruby on Windows is a nightmare. To be specific, Ruby itself (the core language and core libraries) are pretty good on Windows. Great choice for a scripting language, or whatever else you want to do. But libraries like ActiveRecord, Rails and their myriad dependencies are very ve…

> file paths (forward slash vs. backslash)

Windows file APIs have always supported forward slashes in file paths, even before there was Windows. This goes all the way back to MS-DOS 2.0.

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

#319

Post by donatj »

wyufro wrote: post #252
frou_dh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the persistent meme that iTerm2 is somehow essential. Apple do a great job with the builtin Terminal.app

Just that the prompt automatically goes on a new line makes iTerm2 so nice though. As well as the built in timing of commands, jump to previous prompt, double click selects matching parentheses, etc. it's those little details.

zsh does this out of the box, and Apple is defaulting to it in Catilina.

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

#320

Post by jypepin »

a-ogilvie wrote: post #212
jypepin wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One good thing about programming on Mac is the UNIX environment which basically works just like on Linux. Makes it great for finding questions/solutions that work (vs on Windows for example). Do you see that changing as macOS gets away from UNIX? That would probably be a bad hit on apple if Linux becomes then the de facto programming OS when Apple drops UNIX

What makes you think Apple has any plans to move away from Unix?

from the comment I am answering to

> They've been gradually deprecating Unix for 20 years, and designing the OS they want.

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