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I don't really see the problem with this though; people who are familiar with what bash and rsync are will probably understand computers well enough to install

I don't really see the problem with this though; people who are familiar with what bash and rsync are will probably understand computers well enough to install them with Homebrew or Macports or something.

acdha 5y ago
> people who are familiar with what bash and rsync are will probably understand computers well enough to install them with Homebrew or Macports or something. This is probably somewhat optimistic: there are a lot of people who are not developers who still use those tools — I've supported scientists, librarians, analysts, etc. who had a few scripts using tools like that but weren't really comfortable making changes. That doesn't mean it's _hard_ to install Homebrew but it's something which they'll need a little pointer and possibly institutional approval to do.
- tombert 5y ago
  That's fair, I guess it has a potential to affect non-geek users at some level if they're using geek-supplied scripts. I guess I just feel like the net good would be to de-bundle these non-compliant tools and get them to install upstream versions from Homebrew or MacPorts or something. It's annoying, and I'm not one of those people that tends to be the "OMG JUST RTFM IT'S NOT THAT HARD!!", since if people are struggling with it then it is "that hard", but I feel like there isn't a solution that can satisfy all parties with this. It seems that we either break the workflow, which makes a few of the aforementioned parties for a bit, keep bundling the old versions of these tools and leave potential security problems in there, or somehow forcing Apple to change their OS to be GPL3 compliant. For better or worse (probably worse), that last one isn't going to happen, so it feels like the lesser of the two evils is to stop bundling software that won't be getting future support.
- filmgirlcw 5y ago
  I agree that plenty of people who are not developers use those tools but I also don’t think the lift of installing homebrew or macports is going to be too much for people who are already smart enough to run those scripts in the first place. Like you said, it just requires a little pointer, which hopefully people will be happy to provide. The approval thing is valid, but I feel like that is likely going to be an issue that becomes more and more common as Apple moves to move more and more tools and utilities to the Xcode tools download anyway. Support/approval teams are just going to need to adjust to that reality, even if it’s an annoyance because I don’t see things shifting back, at least with Apple. But issues of approval aside, I honestly think back of myself as a teenager, installing fink and Macports and figuring it all out as I went along and I wouldn’t have called myself a developer then. I was just a girl who wanted to tinker with stuff. I think we (and I’m not talking about you specifically but the more general “we” as in the types of people that frequent HN) often underestimate the abilities of our non-dev brethren. We overestimate how much users know too, of course, but I do think we often slot people who have shown that they have the capabilities and desire to solve a problem into a “lesser” box just because they don’t carry the title of developer. And that affects those users too, who then assume they can’t do something when their own track record proves otherwise.
  - acdha 5y ago
    Definitely. I work a lot with librarians — that's a field which isn't considered “technical” but then you look and there are people writing shell scripts to process collections, writing tools in languages like Python to manipulate metadata or work with APIs, etc. and that distinction starts to look pretty arbitrary. (This is actually a big retention problem in the field: someone who learns that in college / on the job is going to look at the pay multiplier they can get by applying for a developer job)
lanstin 5y ago
It means I can’t go to help someone with their laptop and use emacs to look at their cruddy code :) but covid ended that sort of help anyways, now I have to watch them type in screen share and see if they know about tab completion and shell history thru the up arrow.
- tombert 5y ago
  Well you should be using vi anyway so I consider this a win /s That's a reasonable thing to be annoyed about, but I also think that progress dictates breaking workflows occasionally.
tambourine_man 5y ago
Part of the magic of macOS was a pretty UNIX that just works. Sure, I can install and deal with the burden of a package manager, but I don’t want to and didn’t use to need to for basic tools. I want Apple to do this. If you’re installing your own shell making sure it doesn’t conflict with anything else, you might as well run Linux.

acdha 5y ago

> people who are familiar with what bash and rsync are will probably understand computers well enough to install them with Homebrew or Macports or something. This is probably somewhat optimistic: there are a lot of people who are not developers who still use those tools — I've supported scientists, librarians, analysts, etc. who had a few scripts using tools like that but weren't really comfortable making changes. That doesn't mean it's _hard_ to install Homebrew but it's something which they'll need a little pointer and possibly institutional approval to do.

tombert 5y ago
That's fair, I guess it has a potential to affect non-geek users at some level if they're using geek-supplied scripts. I guess I just feel like the net good would be to de-bundle these non-compliant tools and get them to install upstream versions from Homebrew or MacPorts or something. It's annoying, and I'm not one of those people that tends to be the "OMG JUST RTFM IT'S NOT THAT HARD!!", since if people are struggling with it then it is "that hard", but I feel like there isn't a solution that can satisfy all parties with this. It seems that we either break the workflow, which makes a few of the aforementioned parties for a bit, keep bundling the old versions of these tools and leave potential security problems in there, or somehow forcing Apple to change their OS to be GPL3 compliant. For better or worse (probably worse), that last one isn't going to happen, so it feels like the lesser of the two evils is to stop bundling software that won't be getting future support.
filmgirlcw 5y ago
I agree that plenty of people who are not developers use those tools but I also don’t think the lift of installing homebrew or macports is going to be too much for people who are already smart enough to run those scripts in the first place. Like you said, it just requires a little pointer, which hopefully people will be happy to provide. The approval thing is valid, but I feel like that is likely going to be an issue that becomes more and more common as Apple moves to move more and more tools and utilities to the Xcode tools download anyway. Support/approval teams are just going to need to adjust to that reality, even if it’s an annoyance because I don’t see things shifting back, at least with Apple. But issues of approval aside, I honestly think back of myself as a teenager, installing fink and Macports and figuring it all out as I went along and I wouldn’t have called myself a developer then. I was just a girl who wanted to tinker with stuff. I think we (and I’m not talking about you specifically but the more general “we” as in the types of people that frequent HN) often underestimate the abilities of our non-dev brethren. We overestimate how much users know too, of course, but I do think we often slot people who have shown that they have the capabilities and desire to solve a problem into a “lesser” box just because they don’t carry the title of developer. And that affects those users too, who then assume they can’t do something when their own track record proves otherwise.
- acdha 5y ago
  Definitely. I work a lot with librarians — that's a field which isn't considered “technical” but then you look and there are people writing shell scripts to process collections, writing tools in languages like Python to manipulate metadata or work with APIs, etc. and that distinction starts to look pretty arbitrary. (This is actually a big retention problem in the field: someone who learns that in college / on the job is going to look at the pay multiplier they can get by applying for a developer job)

lanstin 5y ago

It means I can’t go to help someone with their laptop and use emacs to look at their cruddy code :) but covid ended that sort of help anyways, now I have to watch them type in screen share and see if they know about tab completion and shell history thru the up arrow.

tombert 5y ago
Well you should be using vi anyway so I consider this a win /s That's a reasonable thing to be annoyed about, but I also think that progress dictates breaking workflows occasionally.

tambourine_man 5y ago

Part of the magic of macOS was a pretty UNIX that just works. Sure, I can install and deal with the burden of a package manager, but I don’t want to and didn’t use to need to for basic tools. I want Apple to do this. If you’re installing your own shell making sure it doesn’t conflict with anything else, you might as well run Linux.