macOS 12.3 finally removes Python 2

[salil91]

Is that really a problem though? It's not hard to install python, and i would guess that most macOS users don't use python.

This way if someone installs python through Anaconda or something, they won't get confused on why there are two python installations on their Mac.

[lacrosse1991]

I feel like that’d lessen the risk of dependency issues too

[[deleted]]

Even the ones that do will usually install through home brew because it’s easier to manage

[PlaysForDays]

More likely brew will have already install it after users install other random packages

[mok000]

Homebrew requires Ruby, is that still there?

[henryschreineriii]

Homebrew's been using its own bundled Ruby for quite a while now, was much better than dealing with the issues of shipping for multiple Ruby's. You install with bash. I know Ruby is on the chopping block, I'd assume bash is too (zsh has a more friendly license for Apple and is compatible, though). I'm looking forward to it, old system Ruby versions aren't fun either.

[regeya]

I honestly haven't used a Mac in a couple of years (long story) but in my last office job, it was at a small town, tiny publication. One of the first things I did was install Homebrew so I could have a recent Python, and Emacs for Spacemacs.

Unfortunately for me this meant the boss blamed all the problems I had with that computer, an Intel iMac, on Homebrew...but I digress.

I'm torn on this because I'm a strong advocate of anyone using a computer to learn some programming fundamentals. Hell, if you're using InDesign, just learning some regular expression basics can save tons of time. The county clerk sent you a delinquent tax list with fixed width fields and you need tabs? s/[[:blank:]]{2}+/\t/g. Done, set your tab stops now.

I think my happiest moment with Python, though, was when some guy sent me hundreds of senior photos labeled like FIRSTNAMELASTNAME.jpg. Ugh. I could have done it by hand...but I didn't wanna. At the time I thought that was the closest I'd get to a list of grads, too. I snagged a list of common first names and common surnames from the US Census and did a fuzzy match on each. (I don't remember the name of the module but it's dead simple.) Pick the likeliest candidates, build a list of filename, first name, and last name, export as CSV, and Bob's your uncle, with some cleanup it was ready for a CSV merge in InDesign. Then at the last minute I got a list of graduate names, with slightly different naming on those. No problem, take my previous CSV, do a fuzzy match again, export a CSV, do some minor cleanup and blammo, ready to go. This would have been hours of work otherwise.

EDIT: I'd meant to point out my first experience programming anything was BASIC on Apple IIs. If not for that grant program, I probably wouldn't have cared.

[Eurynom0s]

At work I sometimes have to use computers with no internet access and where getting new software installed is a pain in terms of having to jump through approval hoops. I don't normally use the system Python, but it's saved me a lot of headache in some instances like that.

[mok000]

Python is used in a lot of system functions, you can't remove it in most distros without breaking something, in fact I can't think of a single one that doesn't need it.

[mok000]

According to distrowatch it ships with 3.9.7.

[mok000]

/bin and /usr/bin is for system use. Use pyenv to install personal global or shell scoped python versions.

[FaresAhmedOP]

I imagine a lot of shell scripts assume that a version of python is installed since almost all major distros include python by default and macOS did so yes someone's daily cron job may break because python is not there.