Re: Why no TextMate for Linux?

On Friday 12 March 2010 07:00:06 pm Seebs wrote:
> On 2010-03-13, David Masover <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 10 March 2010 10:55:11 pm Seebs wrote:
> >> It's not as if most people can realistically get a real feature change
> >> into vi.  Even most programmers would be unlikely to find it worth the
> >> time and effort.
> >
> > Most likely -- but having the ability is important.
> >
> > I'm unlikely to ever want to, say, burn an American flag, but it is
> > important to me that I have that right.
> 
> Non-comparable.  No fundamental civil rights are infringed when I'm told
> I can't burn *someone else's* American flag.  My right to write software
> is not infringed by my lack of a right to modify someone else's without
> permission.

I suppose that's the difference between buying and renting software.

Put another way, I'm not saying I should be able to burn someone else's flag. 
But if you sold me a flag, why should that automatically allow you to dictate 
how I use it? Should I have to sign a no-burning contract before any flag I 
buy?

No, after I buy it, it's mine, even if you're the one who made it.

Regardless, the point was not that this is an essential right, and that's 
clearly hyperbole (on my part). The point is that it's important to me to have 
that ability, whether or not I have a clear and present need for it.

> >> >  * You're tied to an OS which is notorious for breaking backwards-
> >> > compatibility.
> >>
> >> lolwut?  I have things from OS X 10.0, written for PowerPC systems,
> >> which still run on Intel in 10.6.
> >
> > And I've seen things break from 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5.
> 
> So?  I've got code which has been broken by just about every Linux system
> revision since RHEL4 or so.

I haven't seen much of that, not that it matters -- the point is that 
generally, open code that has a userbase of programmers will be maintained 
across those versions, and even the old, unpopular versions are often forked 
and maintained. Neither of these is guaranteed for proprietary software.

>  But all you've shown so far is that at least one group of people who were
>  actively updating software for new systems released something that ran on
>  a previous system and the current system, but not on systems before that
>  -- but that could be just because they linked against that system's
>  libraries.

Could be -- though I was under the impression that most libraries are included 
with the program, and that this was an advantage of the .app folder concept.

VLC isn't the only example, but the obvious ones that come to mind are things 
like a virtual desktop manager (pre-Spaces), which likely fits your criteria 
of being a low-level hack, something you'd expect to break. I remember seeing 
similar things with TunnelBlick, though again, it's been long enough that this 
may be my imagination.

I withdraw that claim.

> > With proprietary software, that's not an option -- Microsoft wanted to
> > force Vista on everyone, so they threatened to pull support for XP. That
> > would've meant security vulnerabilities, among other things, making life
> > difficult for those of us wanting to stay on XP -- no chance of any
> > bugfixes. Microsoft maintains support for old version of Windows, but to
> > a point -- beyond which, the community CANNOT take over.
> 
> Right.
> 
> Which might be a good argument against considering XP to be the basis of
>  your business or livelihood, unless you have some particular reason for
>  which it's really the best choice for you anyway.

Maybe.

It's also an argument against considering Windows to be the basis of your 
business or livelihood, unless you're willing to accept that upgrade 
treadmill. Again, before Win7, the choice was likely between XP and Vista, and 
many savvier consumers disliked Vista with a passion.

So your choice was to stick with XP, which was relatively light, fast, and 
proven, but risk Microsoft letting it slowly rot... or upgrade to Vista, which 
was buggy, slow, new, and prone to breaking XP apps in interesting ways.

And the only way out? Win7. But that was, again, depending wholly on Microsoft 
to solve the issue.

> > Now consider the case of a killer app developed by a single individual.
> > What are the chances he's going to expend significant time and energy
> > maintaining old versions of TextMate when he could be working on a new
> > version (and charging for it) instead?
> 
> Not particularly high -- but an editor isn't comparable to an OS (unless
> it's emacs).  I don't have to worry about new malware targeting my editor,

With textmate having its own URL schema, yes, you do. And that's ignoring 
other stuff that you'd hope is easy to get right, like proper handling of the 
text itself.

> But I can't see why you'd argue not just that this is a benefit, but that
> it's such a huge benefit that anyone who would prefer ANY other combination
> of features, values, or requirements over it is somehow objectively wrong.

I'm not arguing that.

I'm arguing that it is a huge benefit, and I'm puzzled that people place so 
little value on it, especially when I presume it's exactly this kind of 
benefit that would lead someone to Ruby in the first place.

However, I did a fair amount of development for HD-DVD, and I always keep a 
copy of Windows around, so I do understand. Then again, my reasons for using 
Visual Studio as an IDE for HD-DVD don't apply to TextMate.

> > Whew. That was hard to find the one tool which isn't portable, and I'm
> > not even sure about that -- it might run under Cygwin!
> 
> Oh, sure, tons of stuff is portable.  On the other hand, having suffered
> through Gaim^WPidgin for years, I *love* using Adium X.

Adium was good. I like Kopete, these days.

> >> It is usually a bit of a tradeoff.  I'll accept some non-portability of
> >>  tools to get jobs done sooner and with less effort.
> >
> > I'll do that, if it's enough sooner and enough less effort to justify the
> > loss of flexibility. I'd much rather spend a bit more time and get it
> > right the first time, using portable, flexible, open tools, so that I
> > don't have to completely redo it if something needs to be changed.
> 
> I don't view choice of editor as really being a matter of "completely
>  redo". It's one of many tools I use, and if I switch, well, I use a
>  different editor. Whatever.

Right, that's the major difference between an editor and the kind of tool that 
justifies this long of a discussion. For example, your iPhone projects sound 
like they're of the type where it would be a significant effort, possibly even 
a full rewrite, to port them to another platform.

I think I wandered offtopic there.

> > sudo apt-get install samba
> 
> Yeah, I did actually set up samba.  Three times.  It was a nightmare to
> get it working reliably with several different windows systems, the
> documentation was crap, and it crashed fairly often.

Can't speak much for the documentation, but I have created Samba setups 
(fairly simply) which worked, out of the box, on every Windows I came across. 
I have never once seen Samba crash.

I enjoy sysadmin work, but I've also gotten a static webserver working in 
under five minutes, and a local torrent tracker (complete with relevant 
torrents) in under half an hour (due to crap documentation).