On Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 5:10 PM William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 3:36 AM E. Madison Bray <erik.m.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > If I had to run Sage on Windows for some reason today, I would use > > > Docker or VirtualBox. I helped support somebody using the Cygwin > > > version of Sage on Windows at the Sage booth at the Joint Math > > > Meetings last week, and it typically took about 1 minute to start up > > > Sage, which was scary. She also was 100% convinced that copy/paste in > > > the Sage terminal (really cygwin) didn't work, which would make using > > > Sage very painful indeed. It turned out that copy/paste does work if > > > you use the context menu. > > > > I wish you had asked me about this or brought it up with me before > > spreading unfounded FUD based on one experience. I really don't > > appreciate it--it sets a bad example when the creator of Sage says > > "don't use the Windows port of Sage", and is pretty insulting frankly. > > > > What I wrote above was that in my one experience last week helping somebody > with Cygwin Sage. These two statements are just an observation I had while > helping somebody. > > > So these are engineering challenges, but solvable ones, not reasons to > > say "don't use X". > > I didn't write "don't use X". I wrote "I would use Docker or > VirtualBox", and to clarify I literally > meant that "*I* would use..." (I wish I had put I in bold). This is > true, and was
I understood that. In my frustration I was probably unclear about this point. I know it was intended as a statement of personal preference. However, you're in a unique position that your words carry more weight than others and should be considered more carefully. I've been on Hacker News and I know how things get taken out of context. "William Stein says don't use the Windows port of Sage", etc. You then went on to justify your supposed personal preference based on one experience you had with someone else using it. If there were some actual bugs you could say so, but instead it came off as "there were some vague problems, so I wouldn't use it". It's also very discouraging because prior to this (or the WSL) a VM was the only way to use Sage on Windows, and your message gave the impression that all the effort that has been put into making a better Windows experience was for nothing if it's somehow a worse experience even than using a VM (it isn't). > in response to somebody who wrote to our mailing list who was > frustrated with using Cygwin, > so it was a fair suggestion. Also, the original poster was > contemplating porting Sage > to windows, so they are probably extremely technically competent. Maybe they're "frustrated with using Cygin" maybe not. All they wrote is "the ugh-worthy Cygwin" which doesn't give any obvious indication as to their experience with it. I used to have the same feeling about it, though I had barely ever used it myself, so it was more of a knee-jerk opinion. Now that I've spent more time with it I've found that it gives a far better and well-considered UNIX-like experience on Windows than most existing alternatives. The only reason I would prefer not to use it are aforementioned technical problems with emulating certain POSIX interfaces (most notably fork()). They may or may not be "extremely technically competent" but possibly not experienced enough with the software at hand to have a good handle on just how much effort such porting would take. I made the same mistake starting out. I do think it's possible though, of course, but it will take more than just one or two people making a burst of contribution. It's going to require a long, sustained (and sustainable) effort. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I like having work/life balance too much. > > The stuff about copy/paste is just nonsense. [...] > > For me, the best measure for usability is listening to users. Sure, but the copy/paste question is kind of outside the scope of Sage, or even Sage on Windows. Terminal emulator environments on any platform are difficult to novice users who don't have much experience with them. I've been teaching Software Carpentry workshops for years, and every time I think I've seen every problem novices have, I'm surprised anew by new workshops. Regardless, you made the suggestion that this was a unique problem to Sage on Windows, and a reason not to use it. Your "solution" was also inaccurate and uninformed. > Anyways, if you have the chance, I would encourage you to run a booth > somewhere and help > random people use Sage on Windows all day for a few days. Or to try > to create some sort It's almost as if people have been doing that! Ever since the first beta, in fact. I personally haven't gotten out there and done that because I don't go to a lot of mathematics conferences, as they're not generally relevant to me personally. But I'm going to one in a few weeks in fact. In the meantime, other people have been doing that, collecting feedback, and sending it to me personally or posting it in places like ask.sagemath.org or opening issues on https://github.com/sagemath/sage-windows > of support community around sage on windows (e.g., a big link right > when it starts up > to a discourse forum or something). I would guess that right now the > canonical support > forum for sage on windows might be > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sage-windows, > but it has only two posts in the last two years? In any case, for me > at least, if I'm not > seeing or answering support questions regularly from actual users, it > can be hard to know > what is really nonsense. The "canonical support forum" would be the same as those for any version of Sage, as mentioned above. Many people have had no problem finding this out. Of course, one never hears from the ones who don't find that out and that is a problem. The idea of adding some easier to find help from the terminal is an interesting idea though. Right now it's just using minTTY which is the default terminal emulator used for Cygwin (others could be used too, though I've found it to be one of the simplest and easiest to use). But a custom build of minTTY with more help context could be interesting. A better idea, which I've considered, would be to make a custom build of nteract ( https://nteract.io/ ), which I spent some time looking into last year ( https://github.com/sagemath/sage-windows/issues/20 ). This would be ideal, as in theory it would be a good way to develop a common "desktop" experience for Sage across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Unfortunately I struggled a bit with a few technical problems getting the Sage kernel working, and figuring out how to customize the build and installation system. But those were just some technical hurdles that deserve more time spent on them. I think either nteract or something like it would give the best experience all around. > I'm sorry again to have deeply insulted you and appreciate the > enormous contributions you've > made to Sage, and I'll avoid posting about cygwin publicly after that > without consulting > with you first. I wouldn't say I was "deeply insulted" (though I realize I used the word "insulting" and I regret that), but I am very discouraged. And not for any good reason either. Just reporting problems as a matter of fact would not be a problem. It's more the implied notion that a couple of problems would be a reason not to use it at all. If that were the case you should throw out all implementations of Sage on all platforms. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
