Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by massysett on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:12PM
(#23273634)
If that’s what you really want, grab a used ThinkPad and put Arch Linux on it. It will boot in a few seconds and is much more powerful than a Vic-20.
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Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by yjftsjthsd-h on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:22PM
(#23273745)
Still doesn't give you a programming environment, unless you want to do bash.
How does that even make sense? It’s an OS, go grab a Desktop Environment and download nvim, VSCode or whatever.
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by yjftsjthsd-h on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:56PM
(#23274216)
The original line that I was responding to was
> Teaching my daughter to program on a modern computer, we spend more time bootstrapping and in process, than we do in actual development.
Arch Linux does not help with this, unless you make it boot into a VIC-20 emulator or something. Arch can help with boot speed, but once you're booted you're back in a full modern OS. So fine, install VSCode and Python... okay, now you get to figure out libraries. Manage terminals. Arrange a filesystem. This is not getting you closer to the VIC-20 or C64's "boot into BASIC".
This is very possible on Arch Linux, moreso than other distributions. After installing Arch, just run the following two commands:
sudo pacman -S xonsh
chsh --shell /usr/bin/xonsh
How about Processing. https://processing.org/
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by goatinaboat on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:43PM
(#23274025)
How does that even make sense?
Because that was the experience on those old machines. Switch it on, straight to BASIC prompt in a second or so. If you want to program it’s frictionless. And you can’t break it because BASIC is in ROM.
Flexibility vs complexity is a slippery slope.
If you want that today get a BBC microbit, switch on and you're directly in a python environment
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by gorrillaribs on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:44PM
(#23274047)
Doesn't arch come with python & gcc out of the box?
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by yjftsjthsd-h on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:58PM
(#23274245)
No, although `pacman -Syu python base-devel` isn't exactly a burden. But then what? If you're trying to get back to a simple "turn on computer, land in simple programming environment", how does it help that you have python and gcc available? You still have to manage libraries, learn to use a compiler, and all the other joys of modern development. The only thing Arch Linux gained you was a bit simpler OS and maybe better boot times.
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by Throwaeay2928 on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:57PM
(#23274224)
Yes it does. When you pacstrap you include base devel. From that moment onwards your you will have a full programming environment all ready to rock and roll on your installation.
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by yjftsjthsd-h on Friday May 22, 2020 @01:26PM
(#23274616)
Yes, and you have a full operating system and all the joys of modern development. You absolutely do not have anything like a VIC-20 that you can power on end have a basic programming environment 5 seconds later. At best, you turn it on and 5 seconds later have a python shell, where you can do a certain amount of development before you get to experience the joys of managing libraries and dependencies. Thus bringing us back to what I perceived as the primary complaint that there's way too much setup and baggage required just to get to the actual programming part.
Re:MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?
by californical on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:10PM
(#23275763)
You can use python without needing to manage any packages -- you'll have to write most things from scratch, but isn't that the hardware BASIC non-internet experience regardless?