On Oct 19, 2007, at 2:51 AM, Chris Devers wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, jeremiah@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
>> On Oct 18, 2007, at 11:40 PM, Chris Devers wrote:
>>
> Back to the point, this is what I'm confused about. If what you
> want is,
> pretty narrowly described, Debian's distribution system, then why are
> you looking elsewhere? Are you saying Apple should adopt it wholesale?
Yes, I think I am.
>
> I can't picture Debian taking the effort to ****t what they're doing
> to a
> new platform,
Ubuntu, Mempis, Knoppix, debian platforms abound. The debian
packaging systems lends itself to building new platforms.
> and expectially not a proprietary one, so it would have to
> be a case of Apple either back****ting Debian's patches & packages, or
> duplicating the effort with the same intent but from scratch. I'm not
> sure I can picture either of these things happening.
I can draw a picture for you: http://finkproject.org/
> Within a stable release of the OS (10.3.x, 10.4.x, 10.5.x, etc),
> there's
> only security updates -- which, iirc, is exactly what Debian does.
Yes, except that security fixes are available through apt-get
immediately. So you update with a 'pull' instead of waiting for a
'push.'
>
> When transitioning between major releases (10.3 -> 10.4, 10.4 ->
> 10.5),
> things are updatedto the currently available stable version -- which,
> iirc, is also exactly what Debian does.
>
> How is this so different?
>
> As for community software, you've got me there. I can't think of any
> examples at all of Apple offering things to the community. Aside from
> Webkit.
WebKit is a winner.
> And launchd.
Does anyone other than Apple even use this?
> Oh and Bonjour. Oh and CUPS,
Yes Apple maintains this now, and that is pretty cool, you're right.
But it came from somewhere else.
> if you're in to that
> whole "printing" thing on your Debian machines.
I try to avoid it. :-)
> Oh and well I guess
> Darwin & the mach kernel also count.
Such popular software that people are staying away from it in droves.
> Oh and I think some patches back to
> the GCC suite, last I checked.
So that other free software can run 30% slower on the same chip
architecture.
> But aside from those examples, you're
> right, there's absolutely no community software available from Apple,
> and certainly there doesn't seem to be any on CPAN.
>
>> I want 5.10 to work without hassle on OS X (Leopard).
>
> Maybe we need to define "hassle", but the concensus from everyone else
> seems to be that installing your own copy is unlikely to be difficult,
> once it comes out. Remember: a lot of the core Perl developers are Mac
> users, so they'll already have been testing it there during
> development
> rather than just ****ting to it post-release.
I have already conceded to those more knowledgeable than I, and that
includes nearly everyone on this list, that I am wrong here. I, as a
developer, should maintain the latest version of perl on my machines.
I give in!
>> I want my code to be run cross platform (I am talking CGI here -
>> still
>> there are big differences between LAMP and {M,A}AMP)
>
> Care to elaborate?
Yes I really ought to, but I have little concrete info to provide at
the moment. I am struggling with a bug that appears on OS X with
apache 1.3.33 but not on linux with apache 2.0. I am not sure where
the bug is. It is quite uncharitable of me to cast aspersions on
Apple for this bug, since it is probably my own lousy code, but hey,
I own Apple shares so I feel I have a right to criticize.
> Most generic CGI scripts will run with only minor
> modification on most versions of Perl, including Windows.
Indeed, and that is one of the things that makes perl so remarkable,
it is amazingly cross platform.
>
> If you want the same code to run verbatim on a bunch of different
> platforms, I think the general wisdom is that you're going to have to
> target a common denominator, which will mean both [a] a version of the
> software that is available on the ****pping versions of everything you
> target, and [b] a subset of the language functionality that has been
> proven to work on all the target platforms you're thinking of.
>
> If you go against either of those assumptions, then of course
> things are
> not going to be as smooth as you're hoping for.
>
Thank you, good advice which I will try to follow.
>> I want the time and effort I invested in learning perl to be useful
>> for developing native applications on Mac OS X. (I am willing to
>> learn
>> how to use CamelBones to accomplish this. Right now I think it best I
>> learn Objective-C.)
>
> "Native" contradicts "cross-platform", but whatever. As Sherm said,
> you'll be able to do this, but it's not going to be bundled (and
> therefore you may have a harder time packaging anything written
> this way
> for general release distribution on Leopard, unless you also bundle
> up a
> copy of Camelbones et al).
>
> Keep in mind that Ruby & Python will also work for this, and
> <blasphemy>
> they're both pretty good languages, too </blasphemy>.
>
I have not said anything negative in regards to those two fine
programming languages, in this thread.
>> I am just asking for a reasonable, up-to-date, development
>> environment
>> so that I do not have to shell into a linux server to do the job I
>> need to do.
>
> So target the release version, or do like everyone else that's
> concerned
> about this and install your own Perl. It's not hard to do, and it's
> really not that different than how things are on Debian.
Yes it is. debian's packages are updated constantly, not just in
point releases. So if there is a problem a new package is made
available relatively quickly. All you have to do is call `apt-get
update` and you have the new packages with dependency handling built
in! (Even better than CPAN's because CPAN's can only handle perl
dependecies while apt-get can handle system dependencies.) If a bug
appears in apache I have to wait for a new point release or
infrequent security update from Apple or hope that the fix has
propagated to fink which doesn't move as fast as debian and is a
couple of upstream releases behind[0].
If Apple sup****ted fink with resources, or just unified the way free
software is installed on OS X, I am convinced it would see a positive
response from developers and system administrators, leading to new
software for the platform, more deployment, profits, etc. Right now,
you have to go through Darwin****ts.com, Mac****ts, fink, or compile
from source. If a free operating system built by volunteers can do
this why can't Apple? And why is everyone on my case because I want
that? Honestly? Is it _that_ unrealistic? Are these things that no
one else cares about? Have I lost my marbles?
Jeremiah
[0] fink: apache2 2.0.55 OS X
apt-get: apache2 2.2.4 ubuntu 7.10
apt-get: apache2 2.2.6 debian/sid
compile from source 2.2.6 *
|
