Why no TextMate for Linux?
in [Ruby]
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From: David Masover on 18 Mar 2010 22:07 On Monday 15 March 2010 03:05:14 pm Seebs wrote: > On 2010-03-15, David Masover <ninja(a)slaphack.com> wrote: > > On Saturday 13 March 2010 12:05:06 am Seebs wrote: > >> It is not obvious that "buying" a thing necessarily in all cases entails > >> the right to manipulate it in arbitrary ways. > > > > Actually, that in particular was blatantly obvious until very recently. > > Not necessarily for the best. > > Consider what happens when you buy, say, a cat. Do you have the right > to torture it to death over a long period of time? Most people would say > you don't. A cat is a living creature, which complicates things. > If you buy a house, do you have the right to, say, set fire to it? > Probably not, especially if it's near other houses. The only two wrinkles I see are whether it's near other houses, or whether you've got some insurance on it. It's probably better with some sort of compromise in certain circumstances, but I lean much towards the end of letting the end-user do arbitrary things than letting the content creator add arbitrary restrictions. > > Again, take cell phones. I could simply refuse to buy a cell > > phone, or I could get on my soapbox and try to convince others to stop > > buying into these contracts. If enough people actually did start > > demanding cheaper unlocked phones and shorter (or purely monthly) > > contracts, the end result would be better terms for me. > > I'm not sure of this. It might be that the result would be more expensive > phones with shorter contracts, because the subsidies really do reduce the > cost of the phone. Many cell phones are sold for less than they cost to > produce -- with the excess being covered out of the contracts. Well, right, but the contracts do cost more over the long run, and they lock you in. No one who had the money would seriously consider a monthly plan for a computer. People tried attaching a computer to Internet service, as some sort of appliance, and that failed pretty spectacularly. For some reason, people seem to tend towards simply paying however many hundreds or thousands of dollars it is, and then owning the computer -- or iPod, or whatever. Yet with cell phones, people tend towards the slightly higher monthly fee with a long-term contract. I suppose we also do that with cars and houses, but it still seems odd that otherwise-intelligent people, who have the money to spend on the phone up front, would choose this. > >> But for some users, that upgrade treadmill may be worth it -- especially > >> if, say, you gain enough benefit from a particular Windows-only app > >> that it is more efficient to upgrade frequently than to make do with > >> something else. > > > > The problem is, again, how frequently, and how much do you trust > > Microsoft? > > I trust Microsoft roughly as far as I can throw them. > > But here's the thing. Right now, if an app that did something Very > Important To Me ran on Windows, and not on anything else, I might well run > it anyway. I wouldn't expect it to survive, but as long as "using it for a > while" isn't worse than "never using it at all", that's okay by me. So would I. However, I would first try every alternative that's reasonable. For example, if I have to use Word, fine, but I'm going to try OpenOffice first. > > For example, if your app broke on Vista, it now becomes a somewhat more > > expensive proposition... > > Sorta. I have XP licenses around. Netbooks forced Microsoft to extend support. The issue here is that an OS is something that will stop working after awhile. If Microsoft stops delivering security patches for XP, it's going to take significantly more effort on your part to keep it working. Disabling txtmt URLs in TextMate is one thing, running XP in a completely isolated and firewalled VM (or a physically-disconnected machine) is another entirely. > And if 10% sounds high to you, lemme tell you, it is not unreasonable at > all. I'm not skeptical that any text editor can be 10% more productive than any other. I am skeptical that TextMate is 10% better than _all_ current alternatives. > > Doesn't matter. Unless you've actually disabled it (or unless it's > > disabled by default), I can still give you a malformed txtmt URL, so you > > still need to either pay attention to the potential vulnerabilities (and > > actively disable functionality like that) or keep yourself patched. > > Well, yeah. But disabling functionality I don't want is one of the first > things I do with most programs. :) Huh, alright. First thing I do is use it in its default configuration -- people usually put some thought into those defaults. Then I tweak whatever needs to be tweaked. It's a fair point, though. > >> What leads me to Ruby in the first place is that it's pleasant > >> to work with. If I wanted something less vendor-dependant or less > >> likely to be suddenly changed out from under me, leaving me with no > >> practical support, there are probably half a dozen languages I'd be > >> better off with. > > > > Interesting. I wonder what it is about those other languages that makes > > them more suited to that purpose? > > Well, as an obvious example, I use C because I can be pretty confident that > any OS out there will be able to run simple C programs. Pretty much any OS that can run C probably has a Ruby port, and failing that, Perl is _everywhere_. > For instance, I use Ruby in preference to PHP, not because Ruby is less > vendor-dependent, but because it doesn't make me want to bleach my brain > after I have to read code in it. Right, but I'm still not seeing where Ruby is particularly vendor-dependent. It runs on most Unices and Windows. I'm aware there are strange other beasts out there, but it's already well beyond vendor lock-in. Contrast to requiring a single OS, or worse, requiring a single proprietary OS. The difference between single-vendor lock-in and not being ported to everywhere C runs is significant, I think. > >> It won't > >> have a mysterious bug that took me a dozen reboots to track down causing > >> it not to start up when started from /etc/rc.local even though it starts > >> fine when invoked from the command line. > > > > It starts from somewhere else, not rc.local, but it starts automatically > > when installed and on every reboot. > > Once there's a package for it, yes. I was doing this before that, and it > was on a BSD machine, and there was some weirdness that made it not work > when started from rc.local until I fixed it. That's why another huge factor I use to choose software is whether a package exists yet. Also, there's a particularly brutal hack I've used from time to time involving starting a 'screen' instance... > > I'll agree with that, but this happens a lot more often when I consider > > whether they're equivalent for my needs. I'll freely admit Photoshop is > > probably still far better than The Gimp, but I'm also not a graphic > > artist, so open source plus price wins. For most things I'll have to > > print, OpenOffice wins -- some people need certain obscure features of > > Word, I like a big "export to PDF" button, and again, open source, open > > format. > > Yup. One of the things I like on the Mac -- it is extremely difficult to > make a program for the Mac which can print, but can't export to PDF. Same with Linux -- there's a "print to file" button in there somewhere. Worst case, it prints to postscript, which can be convented to PDF. On Windows, with MS Office, it was somewhat more difficult. Maybe it's improved.
From: Seebs on 18 Mar 2010 22:25 On 2010-03-19, David Masover <ninja(a)slaphack.com> wrote: > A cat is a living creature, which complicates things. True. But it's certainly a kind of thing you can own, and have, say, the legal right to kill whenever you want to. (Moral rights, well, maybe not. Or maybe so. Certainly, most pet owners I know eventually hire someone to kill their pets, unless their pets die quickly and unexpectedly.) > It's probably better with some sort of compromise in certain circumstances, > but I lean much towards the end of letting the end-user do arbitrary things > than letting the content creator add arbitrary restrictions. I lean towards letting them make whatever agreement they want, and if you don't like a particular vendor's agreement, don't buy their product. :) >> I'm not sure of this. It might be that the result would be more expensive >> phones with shorter contracts, because the subsidies really do reduce the >> cost of the phone. Many cell phones are sold for less than they cost to >> produce -- with the excess being covered out of the contracts. > Well, right, but the contracts do cost more over the long run, and they lock > you in. I am not sure that they actually "cost more over the long run" -- as in, I am not sure that I would get enough better rates without that contract to cover the full costs of the phones. I'm not even sure I'd get better rates at all without a contract. > No one who had the money would seriously consider a monthly plan for a > computer. I think it would depend on the terms. > Yet with cell phones, people tend towards the slightly higher monthly fee with > a long-term contract. I suppose we also do that with cars and houses, but it > still seems odd that otherwise-intelligent people, who have the money to spend > on the phone up front, would choose this. Is the fee actually higher? > However, I would first try every alternative that's reasonable. For example, > if I have to use Word, fine, but I'm going to try OpenOffice first. Oh, sure. > If Microsoft stops delivering security patches for XP, it's going to take > significantly more effort on your part to keep it working. Disabling txtmt > URLs in TextMate is one thing, running XP in a completely isolated and > firewalled VM (or a physically-disconnected machine) is another entirely. Yup. >> And if 10% sounds high to you, lemme tell you, it is not unreasonable at >> all. > I'm not skeptical that any text editor can be 10% more productive than any > other. I am skeptical that TextMate is 10% better than _all_ current > alternatives. I don't know. For me, nvi works well enough that I haven't used other stuff much. However, I've certainly heard people speak highly of its relative performance. >> Well, as an obvious example, I use C because I can be pretty confident that >> any OS out there will be able to run simple C programs. > Pretty much any OS that can run C probably has a Ruby port, and failing that, > Perl is _everywhere_. I have at least one machine that hasn't got Ruby because it's in a state where I can't build or upgrade packages -- it's just sitting there waiting for me to replace it with a new machine. The other reason I do C is that I do stuff which isn't possible in other languages. This could not be done sanely in Ruby: http://github.com/wrpseudo/pseudo > Right, but I'm still not seeing where Ruby is particularly vendor-dependent. > It runs on most Unices and Windows. I'm aware there are strange other beasts > out there, but it's already well beyond vendor lock-in. How many Matz are there? I only know of the one... And I'm not totally sure that code for MRI will work for other Ruby implementations, because there's not really a formal standard to compare with yet. > The difference between single-vendor lock-in and not being ported to > everywhere C runs is significant, I think. Oh, sure. There's a ton of variety. But as I understand it, right now, I have a mildly broader range of targets for PHP than I do for Ruby. Not enough to make me tolerate it, though. > That's why another huge factor I use to choose software is whether a package > exists yet. Certainly a good thing to look for in some cases. > Also, there's a particularly brutal hack I've used from time to > time involving starting a 'screen' instance... Heh. -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
From: Charles Roper on 20 Mar 2010 15:52 On 12/03/2010 17:01, Roger Pack wrote: > It is free but unless you register will give you a popup at startup time > saying "your license has expired" (then allowing you to continue):) Yeah, e needs quite a bit of love on Linux still. I don't believe that "your license has expired" message is intentional. > The only open source textmate clone I'm aware of is Redcar. It just > released a new version with snippets now:) > > http://redcareditor.com/2010/03/redcar-034dev-released/ I like Redcar a lot, but sadly they announced this not so long ago: "We've also officially dropped plans to support Textmate commands now. Textmate highlighting (done) and snippets (to be done soon) will still be supported, but commands are extremely difficult to make work cross platform, and we have some other ideas that we think are more exciting." -- http://redcareditor.com/2010/02/redcar-033dev-released/ So it's no longer a Textmate clone, strictly speaking, which is a shame. The "other ideas" sound interesting, though. Charles
From: David Masover on 20 Mar 2010 18:18 On Saturday 20 March 2010 07:41:20 am Seebs wrote: > On 2010-03-19, David Masover <ninja(a)slaphack.com> wrote: > > A cat is a living creature, which complicates things. > > True. > > But it's certainly a kind of thing you can own, and have, say, the legal > right to kill whenever you want to. (Moral rights, well, maybe not. Or > maybe so. Certainly, most pet owners I know eventually hire someone to > kill their pets, unless their pets die quickly and unexpectedly.) Not the legal right to torture, and I'm not sure when you're allowed to kill them. I know it's generally a case of euthanasia, which is enough of a gray area already with humans. So again, it's the fact that it's a living thing which complicates it. > > It's probably better with some sort of compromise in certain > > circumstances, but I lean much towards the end of letting the end-user do > > arbitrary things than letting the content creator add arbitrary > > restrictions. > > I lean towards letting them make whatever agreement they want, and if you > don't like a particular vendor's agreement, don't buy their product. :) I'm fine doing that from a legal standpoint. I think regulations occasionally make sense, but for the most part, this is something I wish consumers would enforce, as we do in other areas. (For instance, there don't tend to be waivers or licenses required to eat in a restaurant.) Unfortunately, again, I'm an outlier and I will continue to be, so long as so many people continue to, say, buy iPhones. The net result is that very often there's a product (or set of products) which I do want, but which have intolerable licenses. (Imagine if _every_ restaurant required people to sign a waiver not to sue for food poisoning.) > >> I'm not sure of this. It might be that the result would be more > >> expensive phones with shorter contracts, because the subsidies really do > >> reduce the cost of the phone. Many cell phones are sold for less than > >> they cost to produce -- with the excess being covered out of the > >> contracts. > > > > Well, right, but the contracts do cost more over the long run, and they > > lock you in. > > I am not sure that they actually "cost more over the long run" -- as in, I > am not sure that I would get enough better rates without that contract to > cover the full costs of the phones. I'm not even sure I'd get better rates > at all without a contract. In particular, I think the question is whether a higher-end phone might be cheaper to purchase unlocked (with a cheaper contract) than getting a more expensive contract with a "free" phone. I haven't run the numbers lately, though. > > No one who had the money would seriously consider a monthly plan for a > > computer. > > I think it would depend on the terms. Maybe, but it has been tried in the past, and it's generally failed. Your competition now is monthly plans in which, after a certain number of months, you actually own the computer -- why would I rent when I can rent-to-own? > > Yet with cell phones, people tend towards the slightly higher monthly fee > > with a long-term contract. I suppose we also do that with cars and > > houses, but it still seems odd that otherwise-intelligent people, who > > have the money to spend on the phone up front, would choose this. > > Is the fee actually higher? I suppose it depends. I do know that the more expensive the contract, the better phones come "free" with it. I also know that Verizon, in particular, charges much more for a "smartphone" plan than a straight data plan, even if you're paying a certain amount up front for the phone. > >> Well, as an obvious example, I use C because I can be pretty confident > >> that any OS out there will be able to run simple C programs. > > > > Pretty much any OS that can run C probably has a Ruby port, and failing > > that, Perl is _everywhere_. > > I have at least one machine that hasn't got Ruby because it's in a state > where I can't build or upgrade packages... Is this an example of a machine where you can compile C programs? If so, I still don't see the barrier -- Ruby is a C program. You may not be able to install it into the system, but you can certainly compile it and run it locally. > The other reason I do C is that I do stuff which isn't possible in other > languages. > > This could not be done sanely in Ruby: > http://github.com/wrpseudo/pseudo Fair enough -- though with a brief glance, I wonder how much of it could be done in Ruby, and might even make sense in Ruby. > > Right, but I'm still not seeing where Ruby is particularly > > vendor-dependent. It runs on most Unices and Windows. I'm aware there are > > strange other beasts out there, but it's already well beyond vendor > > lock-in. > > How many Matz are there? I only know of the one... In the same sense as there's only one Linus, yes, but Matz isn't the only core contributor. > And I'm not totally > sure that code for MRI will work for other Ruby implementations, because > there's not really a formal standard to compare with yet. There's actually one in progress. I don't know what the status of it is at the moment. I know there's also a set of tests created by Rubinius. Right now, it seems like the biggest difference between the various Ruby implementations are the differences between Ruby 1.8 and 1.9, and the differences in the C APIs -- obviously, any code I've written which depends on Nokogiri requires me to either rewrite my code or port Nokogiri to any other Ruby VMs I want to run it in. But as an example, JRuby can run Rails.
From: Seebs on 20 Mar 2010 19:21
On 2010-03-20, David Masover <ninja(a)slaphack.com> wrote: > On Saturday 20 March 2010 07:41:20 am Seebs wrote: >> But it's certainly a kind of thing you can own, and have, say, the legal >> right to kill whenever you want to. (Moral rights, well, maybe not. Or >> maybe so. Certainly, most pet owners I know eventually hire someone to >> kill their pets, unless their pets die quickly and unexpectedly.) > Not the legal right to torture, and I'm not sure when you're allowed to kill > them. So far as I can tell, whenever you want. >> I lean towards letting them make whatever agreement they want, and if you >> don't like a particular vendor's agreement, don't buy their product. :) > Unfortunately, again, I'm an outlier and I will continue to be, so long as so > many people continue to, say, buy iPhones. The net result is that very often > there's a product (or set of products) which I do want, but which have > intolerable licenses. (Imagine if _every_ restaurant required people to sign a > waiver not to sue for food poisoning.) I'm not sure this is a problem, though. My desire for something is influenced by its licensing. I don't view it as "a product I want, with an intolerable license", but as "a product that is similar to one I'd want'. >> am not sure that I would get enough better rates without that contract to >> cover the full costs of the phones. I'm not even sure I'd get better rates >> at all without a contract. > In particular, I think the question is whether a higher-end phone might be > cheaper to purchase unlocked (with a cheaper contract) than getting a more > expensive contract with a "free" phone. I haven't run the numbers lately, > though. If it is, I have the option of buying the more expensive phone and the cheaper contract. However, in my experience, the contract rates are not usually affected by the phone or lack thereof. The contract has a fixed price. If you agree to pay that fixed price for 2 years, you get $N off a phone, otherwise you don't. > Maybe, but it has been tried in the past, and it's generally failed. Your > competition now is monthly plans in which, after a certain number of months, > you actually own the computer -- why would I rent when I can rent-to-own? Some large businesses lease computers because they don't WANT to own computers. Personal users, of course, tend to want to buy things. I rent a computer right now, in fact. I think it's somewhere in Texas. It comes with a bunch of bandwidth. It was less hassle for me to rent bandwidth+computer than it would be for me to own the computer, and I don't WANT to "own" that -- I want it to be someone else's job to provide the functionality to me. > I suppose it depends. I do know that the more expensive the contract, the > better phones come "free" with it. I also know that Verizon, in particular, > charges much more for a "smartphone" plan than a straight data plan, even if > you're paying a certain amount up front for the phone. Could well be. That might be, in no small part, because smartphones tend to use a LOT of bandwidth. >> I have at least one machine that hasn't got Ruby because it's in a state >> where I can't build or upgrade packages... > Is this an example of a machine where you can compile C programs? Yes. > If so, I still don't see the barrier -- Ruby is a C program. You may not be > able to install it into the system, but you can certainly compile it and run > it locally. It's a lot of work, though, and I'm not sure I can compile all the things it would require, or at least benefit from having. > Fair enough -- though with a brief glance, I wonder how much of it could be > done in Ruby, and might even make sense in Ruby. My guess would be virtually none. Certainly, virtually none could be done with acceptable efficiency. > There's actually one in progress. I don't know what the status of it is at the > moment. I know there's also a set of tests created by Rubinius. Yeah. When there's a formal standard, that's going to make Ruby a much more attractive target in some cases. -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated! |