Serious danger of being impressed

Ruby
1

I’m mostly into Python, and decided to have a go at writing a little
accounts package (in python on OS X). It worked in its primitive way,
and I was looking to take it to the next level.

I decided that sqlite was the way to go. For some reason I couldn’t get
sqlite3 and the python module to work properly - it didn’t seem to
commit the data to the database consistently.

So I thought, what the hell, I’ll try Ruby. I switched over to Ubuntu,
because it seemed a bit easier than OS X. First impressions: oh man! The
sqlite package worked fine, and I came across rsqlitegui, which I can
use to inspect the database when coding isn’t required.

I think Ruby is a serious serious contender for python.

I’m also in two minds as to whether I should try to switch over from OS
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a nice
polish to it; but then Ubuntu, gotta love those repositories.

2

On Jun 10, 10:15 am, Mark C. [email protected] wrote:

sqlite package worked fine, and I came across rsqlitegui, which I can
use to inspect the database when coding isn’t required.

I think Ruby is a serious serious contender for python.

I’m also in two minds as to whether I should try to switch over from OS
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a nice
polish to it; but then Ubuntu, gotta love those repositories.

There’s a few sore spots on the Mac, but I find MacPorts does the
trick most
of the time.

port install ruby rb-rubygems rb-sqlite3

That should do the trick as long as you don’t mind the /opt/lib file
structure.

I always modify my ~/.profile as well to include:

export RUBYLIB=“/opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/”
export RUBYOPT=“rubygems”

I just don’t like having to manually require ‘ruby_gems’ :wink:

Sure it’s not perfect, but MacPorts means I’ve never had to think
twice about the notoriously difficult RMagick install:

port install rb-rmagick

It’s no apt-get, but I’ll leave that to the servers. Trade in OS X for
Ubuntu? For me that’d be tough. Kubuntu maybe. :wink: Kate is second only
to TextMate IMO.

Either way you decide to go, good luck!

3

“Mark C.” [email protected] wrote in message
news:[email protected]…

I think Ruby is a serious serious contender for python.

As a language, Ruby has always been "a serious contender" for

Python.
Personally, I like it a lot more than Python.
The main advantage of Python over Ruby is a larger library and (more
importantly, since there is a rich library for Ruby) a much more mature
implementation. Sadly, Python is, really, just as powerful a language
as
Ruby, so this gives people every reason to use Python over Ruby, so it
would
help Ruby to work on these things…
What is the state of Ruby development, does anyone know? The
impression
that I get is that it’s slow and diluted across multiple, parallel
efforts…

4

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 12:20:12AM +0900, Mark C. wrote:

sqlite package worked fine, and I came across rsqlitegui, which I can
use to inspect the database when coding isn’t required.

I think Ruby is a serious serious contender for python.

I’m also in two minds as to whether I should try to switch over from OS
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a nice
polish to it; but then Ubuntu, gotta love those repositories.

If you like Ubuntu’s repositories, you should check out Debian’s – much
more extensive, and generally conducive to a more stable system, too.

Similar in extensiveness is FreeBSD’s ports collection – and even
more
conducive to stability than Debian’s repositories. That’s hard to beat.

Both Debian and FreeBSD tend to work best for people who are willing and
able to make their own decisions, however, more than people who want
something “easy”. Ubuntu is far more suited to the average MS Windows
transplant, I suppose.

The above is just one curmudgeonly free unix hacker’s opinion, of
course.

5

Chad P. wrote:

The above is just one curmudgeonly free unix hacker’s opinion, of course.

And Gentoo Linux is a good compromise between FreeBSD’s ports and
Debian’s repositories. Gentoo’s Portage actually descended from ports.

As far as stability is concerned, Debian stable (currently called Etch)
is probably as stable as FreeBSD and I think more stable than Red Hat
Enterprise or the RHEL clones.

But I will stick with Gentoo for Ruby. Except when the Gentoo devs don’t
get prodded from the Ruby community, a Ruby release shows up in Portage
within a day or so. They have jRuby 1.0 RC1 the last time I synced,
which was yesterday, for example. And they have more gems than Debian, I
think.

6

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky:

Chad P. wrote:

If you like Ubuntu’s repositories, you should check out Debian’s –
much more extensive, and generally conducive to a more stable system,
too.

Ubuntu’s based on Debian unstable, so the repositories should more
or less match. Also, while I consider Debian stable more stable than
Ubuntu, I consider Ubuntu stable more stable than Debian unstable. :slight_smile:

And they [Gentoo] have more gems than Debian, I think.

That said, Debian (and, thus, Ubuntu) has the rubygems package, which
can easily install any gem (to /var/lib/gems, so outside dpkg’s domain).

Note: A quick check at packages.gentoo.org indicates that Gentoo
has a rubygems package as well, so this might be a moot point.

– Shot

7

quoth the M. Edward (Ed) Borasky:

And Gentoo Linux is a good compromise between FreeBSD’s ports and
Debian’s repositories. Gentoo’s Portage actually descended from ports.

Really? Like as in, Linux descended from Unix? Or in some direct
fashion? I
always thought portage was an ‘homage’ to ports, so to speak.

But I will stick with Gentoo for Ruby. Except when the Gentoo devs don’t
get prodded from the Ruby community, a Ruby release shows up in Portage
within a day or so. They have jRuby 1.0 RC1 the last time I synced,
which was yesterday, for example. And they have more gems than Debian, I
think.

The paludis devs are currently working on direct support for gems
repositories. Once this is complete we will have direct support for all
gems,
without having to wait for them to become ebuilds (not that writing an
ebuild
for a gem isn’t trivial…)

Very cool…

-d

8

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 03:42:03PM +0900, John J. wrote:

Both Debian and FreeBSD tend to work best for people who are
willing and
able to make their own decisions, however, more than people who want
something “easy”. Ubuntu is far more suited to the average MS Windows
transplant, I suppose.

The above is just one curmudgeonly free unix hacker’s opinion, of
course.

Ubunut is a Debian Linux.

Ubuntu is a Debian fork. It has less in common with Debian itself
than
PC-BSD and DesktopBSD have in common with FreeBSD, and may even have
less
in common with Debian than Dragonfly BSD has with FreeBSD.

In fact, measured within the context of Linux distributions, about the
only thing it meaningfully has in common with Debian is the
under-the-hood package management software it uses (namely, DPKG and
APT).

9

Ok, thanks for the advert. Debian has its own problems, but this isn’t
the place to discuss them.

10

On Jun 10, 2007, at 1:48 PM, Chad P. wrote:

So I thought, what the hell, I’ll try Ruby. I switched over to
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a
beat.
–
CCD CopyWrite Chad P. [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
W. Somerset Maugham: “The ability to quote is a serviceable
substitute for
wit.”

Ubunut is a Debian Linux.

11

On 6/10/07, Mark C. [email protected] wrote:

I’m also in two minds as to whether I should try to switch over from OS
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a nice
polish to it; but then Ubuntu, gotta love those repositories.

Do bear in mind that it’s pretty easy to use /both/ on modern Macs.
Linux
has a lot going for it from a development point of view, and most of the
documentation out there (not to mention most of the packages) is aimed
at
Linux-based builds. OS X is great as the day to day desktop, though… so
a
lot of people use both. You can use Parallels or VMWare Fusion (the
latter
currently being free and faster) and live in the utopia of a great
desktop
but with a well-supported and popular cross-platform architecture on tap
for
development purposes.

Cheers,
Peter C.

12

On 10 Jun 2007, at 19:48, Chad P. wrote:

Similar in extensiveness is FreeBSD’s ports collection – and even
more
conducive to stability than Debian’s repositories. That’s hard to
beat.

Both Debian and FreeBSD tend to work best for people who are
willing and
able to make their own decisions, however, more than people who want
something “easy”. Ubuntu is far more suited to the average MS Windows
transplant, I suppose.

I must admit that since swapping to FreeBSD last year I find using
most Linux distros unnecessarily cumbersome and increasingly user
friendly in the same way as Windows. But OS X is also a damn pleasant
platform to use and I probably do more of my Ruby development work on
it than I do on FreeBSD - TextMate alone makes it hugely productive!
Ubuntu would be the platform that I’d recommend to a Windows user
looking to get into Linux as a user, and Gentoo if they really want
to deep geek how a Linux system hangs together :slight_smile:

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains

raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

13

On 11 Jun 2007, at 08:45, Peter C. wrote:

I’m also in two minds as to whether I should try to switch over
from OS
X permanently. I’m new to iMacs, and I have to say that OS X has a
nice
polish to it; but then Ubuntu, gotta love those repositories.

OS X is great as the day to day desktop, though… so a
lot of people use both. You can use Parallels or VMWare Fusion (the
latter
currently being free and faster)

Not on my laptop it isn’t :wink:
The main advantages VMWare has right now are limited DirectX support
in Windows guests, and two virtual processors. Parallels 3.0 could
blow the former away (full DirectX and OpenGL support, although until
I play with it I’m not counting my chickens) and it happily uses both
cores of my Core Duo (at least, CPU usage has been known to greatly
exceed 100% when doing busy stuff). On the whole though I’d say they
both perform equivalently and are viable choices for anyone who wants
to run multiple OSs concurrently on their Mac :slight_smile:

Ellie

Being and Doing are merely useful abstractions for the ‘time’-
dependent asymmetries of phase space.

14

Eleanor McHugh wrote:

Not on my laptop it isn’t :wink:
Ellie

Being and Doing are merely useful abstractions for the ‘time’-dependent
asymmetries of phase space.

Well, as long as we’re talking virtualization, has anyone managed to get
a Xen system on one of the chips with the virtualization assist to run
OS X as a “guest?” Or does Xen not support the special hardware tweaks
in a Mac? Dual or triple booting is a pain.

Is there virtualization in openSolaris? Will it run a Windows or MacOS
guest?

15

On 6/11/07, Chad P. [email protected] wrote:

Ubuntu is a Debian fork.

More true in theory than in practice. There was a lot more noise
about the fear that Ubuntu would be a fork back in 2005 when Debian
users were getting tired of waiting for Sarge and Ubuntu started to
appear on the horizon.

But the truth is, at least, more nuanced. And even guys like Ian
Murdoch pointed that out at the time:

http://ianmurdock.com/?p=167

And for a view from the Ubuntu “camp” at that time:
http://mako.cc/writing/to_fork_or_not_to_fork.html

Ubuntu takes packages from sid, stabilizes them before debian, but
feeds whatever changes they make back to the sid stream.

So it provides a stream of debian derived releases but instead of
using the traditional Debian model of “we’ll ship the next stable
version when it’s ready,” Ubuntu has a time-box ship model. Ubuntu
makes the final decision on what’s going to actually make the next
release based on which packages have achieved stability in time to
make it, instead of waiting until all of the packages which were
picked at the time the release was started get there. One way of
looking at this is that Debian has a more waterfall release cycle
while Ubuntu is managed using more of the agile project management
approach. Back when Ubuntu “Badger” was in the throes of being
released, Debian Woody was several years old, and Sarge looked to be
slipping almost faster than the release date was approaching,
something which Murdock alludes to in the post I quoted.

The tension is/was? between the needs of server administrators who
favor a stable platform with security maintainence, and developers who
want more recent versions of the upstream code. Back then Ubuntu was
better for the latter. Then they introduced ‘long term support’
releases which are specific Ubuntu releases which will have committed
support for five years (or there abouts). This helps the server
users, since the downside of Debian’s support policy is that they only
provided maintenance for an older stable release for a limited time
after a new stable release becomes available. The net is that Ubuntu
provides both newer code in the latest release for those who want it,
and more predictable support of older releases for those who need
stability.

It has less in common with Debian itself than
PC-BSD and DesktopBSD have in common with FreeBSD, and may even have less
in common with Debian than Dragonfly BSD has with FreeBSD.

I don’t know enough about those distributions to make the comparison,
but from my experience, Ubuntu doesn’t feel like a fork. Even if
Debian doesn’t take ALL of ubuntu’s packages as time goes on, I
predict that the bulk of the code will remain compatible.

That all said, while I’m a happy Ubuntu user, I don’t use packaged
versions of some specific software, most notably Ruby. This isn’t
because of Ubuntu but because of Debian. In the case of Ruby one
major reason is because, as far as I know unless it’s changed
recently, Debian (and therefore Ubuntu) doesn’t really support gems.
Now this may have changed recently, but I’ve been happy installing
Ruby and Gems from source, and gems as gems.

–
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

16

On 6/11/07, Rick DeNatale [email protected] wrote:

Murdoch pointed that out at the time:
using the traditional Debian model of "we’ll ship the next stable
something which Murdock alludes to in the post I quoted.
provides both newer code in the latest release for those who want it,
predict that the bulk of the code will remain compatible.
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

Last time I looked at it there was some weird philosophy for not
having gems support in apt. If I remember correctly it was because
gem uses a folder per package type deal and that goes against the
grain of apt. I can’t find where I read this, so you’d need to do
lots of googling to find it.

17

On 6/11/07, fREW [email protected] wrote:

Last time I looked at it there was some weird philosophy for not
having gems support in apt. If I remember correctly it was because
gem uses a folder per package type deal and that goes against the
grain of apt. I can’t find where I read this, so you’d need to do
lots of googling to find it.

–
-fREW

There are several points they are complaining about rubygems on
http://pkg-ruby-extras.alioth.debian.org/rubygems.html

18

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 04:27:01PM +0900, Dick D. wrote:

Ok, thanks for the advert. Debian has its own problems, but this isn’t
the place to discuss them.

On 11/06/07, Chad P. [email protected] wrote:

Ubuntu is a Debian fork.

Uhh . . . what? I said it was a fork. I didn’t say it was crap. I’m
not sure where you’re coming from with the hostile tone.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development):

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a
copy of source code from one software package and start independent
development on it, creating a distinct piece of software.

From http://wiki.ursine.ca/Fork:

In the open-source community, a fork is what occurs when two (or more)
versions of a software package’s source code are being developed in
parallel which once shared a common code base, and these multiple
versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between
them.

(Note: The commentary about Linux distribution forking in the Jargon
Wiki
is somewhat naive, in terms of its assumptions about the differences
between Linux distributions. The key component of forking is
incompatibility, not whether or not something is composed primarily of
widely available elements.)

So . . . why does your statement read as though you thought I said
“Ubuntu is a crappy Debian fork!”? I said nothing of the kind in my
statement as quoted by you. I pointed out that Ubuntu and Debian are
not
compatible – are not, in fact, simply different implementations of the
same standard, as the previous message seemed to imply.

19

On Monday, June 11 2007, Chad P. wrote:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development):
versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between
statement as quoted by you. I pointed out that Ubuntu and Debian are not
compatible – are not, in fact, simply different implementations of the
same standard, as the previous message seemed to imply.

Well, I have issues with your statement too.

Ubuntu may be a fork, but that’s not telling the whole story.

For one, Ubuntu is “re-forked” every 6 months, after every release.
Less of a
fork, more of a companion code-path. If that makes any sense.

Secondly, you say “The key component of forking is incompatibility…”
I can personally attest that Ubuntu and Debian are compatible in a
number of
ways (but not all!). I’ve used Debian packages in Ubuntu before (and
vice-versa)

Ubuntu is a downstream version of Debian - it’s Debian, with changes,
re-synced every 6 months. How about, “Ubuntu is a Debian patch”. ?

-Benjamin K.

20

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 10:48:26AM +0900, Benjamin K. wrote:

Well, I have issues with your statement too.

Ubuntu may be a fork, but that’s not telling the whole story.

For one, Ubuntu is “re-forked” every 6 months, after every release. Less of a
fork, more of a companion code-path. If that makes any sense.

Parts of the system are. Others continue on the same old path of the
original fork. The fact it “reborrows” good stuff is to Ubuntu’s
credit,
but does not make it less of a fork.

Secondly, you say “The key component of forking is incompatibility…”
I can personally attest that Ubuntu and Debian are compatible in a number of
ways (but not all!). I’ve used Debian packages in Ubuntu before (and
vice-versa)

There are some things that are compatible between, say, MS Windows XP
Pro
and Debian, too – but they’re even less compatible than a proper fork.

Ubuntu is a downstream version of Debian - it’s Debian, with changes,
re-synced every 6 months. How about, “Ubuntu is a Debian patch”. ?

Maybe, kind-sorta, except that it’s not “a” patch. If it can be
compared
to patches at all, it’s a bloody lot of patches.