6 ms·

Maybe they can afford it, but why should they?

by Redoubts 5y ago

simlevesque 5y ago
To offer a good service. To avoid breaking something the users depend on.
- danaris 5y ago
  That's what Windows is for.
- samtheDamned 5y ago
  Apple isn't in the business of spending excess money to avoid breaking things. If anything apple is the opposite.
- Kalium 5y ago
  Apple supported Python 2 for two years after it was officially sunset by the Python Foundation. They've been advising that they will drop support for longer. How long is long enough to avoid breaking something the users depend on? One more year? Five years? Fifty? I think we can all agree that it's reasonable to drop support at some point, making it just a question of when and at what cost.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    Again, the issue is "when", not "whether". They could drop it with v12, or wait for v13, both would be fine. Dropping it in the middle of release cycle what people are objecting to.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "How long is long enough to avoid breaking something the users depend on?" 10 years - a piece of software compiled with 'supported' libraries, SDKs and what have you should function for 10 years. An appliance or a service should function for 10 years and have spare parts avaliable for that long. That is the guideline I ise as a consumer, if I can see that something won't last a decade, I won't be spending money or time on it if i can avoid it. At that point it's no longer a durable good, it's a consumable.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lakhim 5y ago
      Python2.7 was supposed to be EOL in 2015(!). It was released in 2010. It had 10 years of support mainline.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        There would still be Python 2.7 software being produced up to EOL, so you have to start counting from 2015.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  If there are users that still depend on python 2.7, they can install it manually? I mean I already think it's... interesting that an operating system comes with (multiple) programming language interpreters, available to the end-user.
  - mrpippy 5y ago
    That’s true if they’re using it from the command-line, but not if they’re using apps that linked against the system SDK’s libpython2.7.dylib (and assumed PyObjC would be present)
    - TillE 5y ago
      Is there any significant software still using that? Apple is pretty aggressive about breaking backwards compatibility, as they did with x86, so it's no real surprise for unmaintained software to become completely unusable.
      - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        Notably, however, Apple didn't drop x86 support in a minor update.
        mrpippy 5y ago
        And kept the support present for I think a year and a half alongside a runtime warning message (and removed SDK support earlier than that)
      - mrpippy 5y ago
        Based on what they’ve done, I guess the answer is no. My company was shipping (somewhat niche) software linking with the built-in python2 up until last year though, and it’s been a scramble since Monterey to rebuild things to avoid the warning message. Definitely thought we would have python2 until 13.0 though (and part of me wonders whether this is just a “brown-out” for the beta and 12.3 release will be back to normal)
  - 5y ago
nicce 5y ago
Yep. Comparison is not good since Red Hat et al. focus a lot on server side.
intpx 5y ago
Bingo. This falls under the scope of support for an enterprise linux company-- orgs pay them to keep stuff backwards compatible long after the upstream deprecates it. Apple is decidedly not an enterprise support organization. RHEL also doesn't want you using system python as your dev python. RHEL 8 uses 'platform-python' for the bits the system needs and if you install 3.6, they share the common bits If your using a mac as a dev box, and really need python 2.7, you still have options.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Maybe they can afford it, but why should they?

simlevesque 5y ago

To offer a good service. To avoid breaking something the users depend on.

danaris 5y ago
That's what Windows is for.
samtheDamned 5y ago
Apple isn't in the business of spending excess money to avoid breaking things. If anything apple is the opposite.
Kalium 5y ago
Apple supported Python 2 for two years after it was officially sunset by the Python Foundation. They've been advising that they will drop support for longer. How long is long enough to avoid breaking something the users depend on? One more year? Five years? Fifty? I think we can all agree that it's reasonable to drop support at some point, making it just a question of when and at what cost.
- vetinari 5y ago
  Again, the issue is "when", not "whether". They could drop it with v12, or wait for v13, both would be fine. Dropping it in the middle of release cycle what people are objecting to.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "How long is long enough to avoid breaking something the users depend on?" 10 years - a piece of software compiled with 'supported' libraries, SDKs and what have you should function for 10 years. An appliance or a service should function for 10 years and have spare parts avaliable for that long. That is the guideline I ise as a consumer, if I can see that something won't last a decade, I won't be spending money or time on it if i can avoid it. At that point it's no longer a durable good, it's a consumable.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lakhim 5y ago
    Python2.7 was supposed to be EOL in 2015(!). It was released in 2010. It had 10 years of support mainline.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      There would still be Python 2.7 software being produced up to EOL, so you have to start counting from 2015.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
If there are users that still depend on python 2.7, they can install it manually? I mean I already think it's... interesting that an operating system comes with (multiple) programming language interpreters, available to the end-user.
- mrpippy 5y ago
  That’s true if they’re using it from the command-line, but not if they’re using apps that linked against the system SDK’s libpython2.7.dylib (and assumed PyObjC would be present)
  - TillE 5y ago
    Is there any significant software still using that? Apple is pretty aggressive about breaking backwards compatibility, as they did with x86, so it's no real surprise for unmaintained software to become completely unusable.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      Notably, however, Apple didn't drop x86 support in a minor update.
      - mrpippy 5y ago
        And kept the support present for I think a year and a half alongside a runtime warning message (and removed SDK support earlier than that)
    - mrpippy 5y ago
      Based on what they’ve done, I guess the answer is no. My company was shipping (somewhat niche) software linking with the built-in python2 up until last year though, and it’s been a scramble since Monterey to rebuild things to avoid the warning message. Definitely thought we would have python2 until 13.0 though (and part of me wonders whether this is just a “brown-out” for the beta and 12.3 release will be back to normal)
- 5y ago

nicce 5y ago

Yep. Comparison is not good since Red Hat et al. focus a lot on server side.

intpx 5y ago

Bingo. This falls under the scope of support for an enterprise linux company-- orgs pay them to keep stuff backwards compatible long after the upstream deprecates it. Apple is decidedly not an enterprise support organization. RHEL also doesn't want you using system python as your dev python. RHEL 8 uses 'platform-python' for the bits the system needs and if you install 3.6, they share the common bits If your using a mac as a dev box, and really need python 2.7, you still have options.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]