4 ms·

When is it the time to talk about alternatives replacing the current apps in favor of faster apps? 10 years or rare usage? Twenty? At some point the edge cases

by 7bit 2y ago

When is it the time to talk about alternatives replacing the current apps in favor of faster apps? 10 years or rare usage? Twenty? At some point the edge cases should be covered by the scripts not by the app, only to make it slower for everyone. I get what you're saying, but I don't care how it's called. Some things must die. Eg. Python 3 and the depreciation of was a very controversial step, but ultimately the right choice at the right time.

kanbankaren 2y ago
> When is it the time to talk about alternatives When all standards bodies and governments decide that POSIX is a hindrance which might take a few decades. And that is if they decide.
- galangalalgol 2y ago
  The FBI just said everyone needs a roadmap by 2026 to eliminate c/c++ from critical infrastructure.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    Perhaps by 2126, Linux will no longer have C in it, but that's probably hugely optimistic.
    - niobe 2y ago
      We'll all have uploaded to the Metaverse by then, running purely on beams of light and upvotes.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    That document does not have the 2026 deadline. Instead, "At the same time, the authoring agencies acknowledge the commercial reality that transitioning to MSLs will involve significant investments and executive attention. Further, any such transition will take careful planning over a period of years." Also for the roadmap "agencies urge executives of software manufacturers to prioritize using MSLs in their products", not eliminate C. And a lot is about accountability: "The authoring agencies encourage software manufacturers to lead from the top by publicly naming a business executive who will personally drive the elimination of memory safety vulnerabilities from the product line." https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-Case-for-Memory-Safe-Roadmaps-508c.pdf https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-Case-fo...
    - galangalalgol 2y ago
      I was talking about this more recent one. They are starting to hint at legal repercussions. https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-security-bad-practices https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-secur...
  - Maro 2y ago
    So they will not use Linux (or any other popular *NIX), nor Windows, by 2026?
cozzyd 2y ago
Python 3 created a huge amount of unnecessary effort and made a lot of people hesitant about using python again
- andrepd 2y ago
  Well it's one of the most popular languages in the planet so it cannot have gone that bad.
- jhayward 2y ago
  Not a mainstream view. Python 3 is a hugely successful language and implementation, and almost no one regrets that it exists aside from a few noisy holdouts, and people who never liked any Python anywhere at any time.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    I don't disagree that python3 is hugely successful, but that doesn't mean the Python 2->3 pain was necessary. Certainly many Python users started using it too recently to remember it though.
  - erik_seaberg 2y ago
    python3 had no compatibility mode, so everyone needed 100% of their dependencies to migrate. This was so painful that some teams abandoned their legacy python2 code and reimplemented in languages with better back compat stories.
    - katzenversteher 2y ago
      Python 3 was announced way ahead and came with migration tools that worked pretty well. Besides character handling most of the stuff was pretty similar at the beginning and I never understood why apparently nobody or only a few projects made the switch early on. That lead to a chicken and egg situation: if you depended on those libraries that did not migrate to python3 you where stuck at python 2 as well. I believe being nice to the community and supporting python 2 for a long time was a mistake. They should have made a hard break and enforce the migration...
Brian_K_White 2y ago
python3 was practically the reason I'll never rely on it for anything. But it's not even just that. Even within a major version it changes so much every few months and between different distros and platforms that random non-packaged scripts never work when moved from the authors fedora box to someone else's debian box, or god forbid bsd or sco or windows, or the same box a year later due to any number of random library/module differences. It's great for the author and miserable for every other user. It's ok for writing and using today and not at all for writing to keep. It's ok for packaged apps where the package manager ensures that the script has exactly the environment it expects. It's ok for controlled environments where the gods at the top have decreed that it is just part of the environment, so, large companies with IT departments and static published environments that everyone must use the same. That's a lot of "it's ok"'s and so that's why it exists and is used in many places, but none of those changes why it's quite terrible.
- Toorkit 2y ago
  Hear, hear. I totally understand why developers love python, but as an end user I dread seeing the .py extension.

by 7bit 2y ago

kanbankaren 2y ago

> When is it the time to talk about alternatives When all standards bodies and governments decide that POSIX is a hindrance which might take a few decades. And that is if they decide.

galangalalgol 2y ago
The FBI just said everyone needs a roadmap by 2026 to eliminate c/c++ from critical infrastructure.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Perhaps by 2126, Linux will no longer have C in it, but that's probably hugely optimistic.
  - niobe 2y ago
    We'll all have uploaded to the Metaverse by then, running purely on beams of light and upvotes.
- viraptor 2y ago
  That document does not have the 2026 deadline. Instead, "At the same time, the authoring agencies acknowledge the commercial reality that transitioning to MSLs will involve significant investments and executive attention. Further, any such transition will take careful planning over a period of years." Also for the roadmap "agencies urge executives of software manufacturers to prioritize using MSLs in their products", not eliminate C. And a lot is about accountability: "The authoring agencies encourage software manufacturers to lead from the top by publicly naming a business executive who will personally drive the elimination of memory safety vulnerabilities from the product line." https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-Case-for-Memory-Safe-Roadmaps-508c.pdf https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-Case-fo...
  - galangalalgol 2y ago
    I was talking about this more recent one. They are starting to hint at legal repercussions. https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-security-bad-practices https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-secur...
- Maro 2y ago
  So they will not use Linux (or any other popular *NIX), nor Windows, by 2026?

cozzyd 2y ago

Python 3 created a huge amount of unnecessary effort and made a lot of people hesitant about using python again

andrepd 2y ago
Well it's one of the most popular languages in the planet so it cannot have gone that bad.
jhayward 2y ago
Not a mainstream view. Python 3 is a hugely successful language and implementation, and almost no one regrets that it exists aside from a few noisy holdouts, and people who never liked any Python anywhere at any time.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  I don't disagree that python3 is hugely successful, but that doesn't mean the Python 2->3 pain was necessary. Certainly many Python users started using it too recently to remember it though.
- erik_seaberg 2y ago
  python3 had no compatibility mode, so everyone needed 100% of their dependencies to migrate. This was so painful that some teams abandoned their legacy python2 code and reimplemented in languages with better back compat stories.
  - katzenversteher 2y ago
    Python 3 was announced way ahead and came with migration tools that worked pretty well. Besides character handling most of the stuff was pretty similar at the beginning and I never understood why apparently nobody or only a few projects made the switch early on. That lead to a chicken and egg situation: if you depended on those libraries that did not migrate to python3 you where stuck at python 2 as well. I believe being nice to the community and supporting python 2 for a long time was a mistake. They should have made a hard break and enforce the migration...

Brian_K_White 2y ago

python3 was practically the reason I'll never rely on it for anything. But it's not even just that. Even within a major version it changes so much every few months and between different distros and platforms that random non-packaged scripts never work when moved from the authors fedora box to someone else's debian box, or god forbid bsd or sco or windows, or the same box a year later due to any number of random library/module differences. It's great for the author and miserable for every other user. It's ok for writing and using today and not at all for writing to keep. It's ok for packaged apps where the package manager ensures that the script has exactly the environment it expects. It's ok for controlled environments where the gods at the top have decreed that it is just part of the environment, so, large companies with IT departments and static published environments that everyone must use the same. That's a lot of "it's ok"'s and so that's why it exists and is used in many places, but none of those changes why it's quite terrible.

Toorkit 2y ago
Hear, hear. I totally understand why developers love python, but as an end user I dread seeing the .py extension.