
OS X Lion Keeps its Yummy Unix Flavor - jmartellaro
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os_x_lion_keeps_its_yummy_unix_flavor/
======
telemachos
This is not an especially detailed article. A few points:

\+ Terminal.app has a significant, long-awaited update that they don't
mention: 256 color support. (They have a link to Apple that says it
explicitly, but then what's the point of the article.)

\+ Python is 2.7.1 (pretty good, I think, but I'm not a Python person, so
others may disagree and wish for 2.7.2).

\+ Ruby is 1.8.7-p249. This is a real shame. I can only guess that they
consider 1.9.2 unstable. In any case a real shame, though I suppose most
Rubyists use rvm now.

\+ Rails is not actually installed. There's a stub at /usr/bin/rails with this
content:

    
    
        #!/bin/sh
        echo 'Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version,  simply type:'
        echo
        echo '    $ sudo gem install rails'
        echo
        echo 'You can then rerun your "rails" command.'
    

I _thought_ that Rails was previously installed out of the box, but maybe I'm
misremembering. In any case, this may be a smart move, given how fast Rails
moves

\+ Vim is 7.3 - persistent_undo is enabled, conceal is not (normal feature
set). Emacs is GNU Emacs 22.1.1. (I don't use it, so I'm not really sure what
features I might want to check for).

\+ /bin/bash is 3.2.48(1)-release.

\+ He seems to imagine that Apple might have chosen to ship with (only?) Perl
6, but they avoided it because Perl 6 makes no promises to be backwards
compatible with Perl 5. I think that this is either a gross simplification or
an outright confusion. Most people expect Perl 5 to continue a healthy life,
no matter how stable and efficient Perl 6 becomes, for some time to come.
(Btw, if you wish to build your own, more recent Perls on Lion, see here:
<http://www.perlbrew.pl/FixLion.html.>)

~~~
mitchty
Ruby 1.8 has been in OSX for a long time, I think apple is just go with a VERY
conservative methodology of whatever the "stable/doesn't break existing
scripts" version is released at the time. Given 1.8 will be deprecated before
the next release is out they won't have much choice but to use 1.9 then, or
2.0 maybe if its out.

Compare to the new(er) perl 5 releases, ruby 1.9 does change some core things.
Take for example the ping class being removed in 1.9. In perl 5.10->5.14.1 all
of the new things like "say" and the new case statement are things you have to
explicitly request in a script which sort of implies you know you need it.
Existing scripts won't behave much different on 5.14 than they did on 5.8.x

I upgraded my last Leopard box last night so can't find the builtin emacs
version but its been around the 22.x series for some time. I don't think they
track upstream nearly as insanely as most linux distros do.

In either case I think rvm/perlbrew/pythonbrew and things like
virtualenv/forgot the perl equivalent, sort of obviate the need for up to date
interpreters in the base install.

I think php was at 5.3 ish when I checked last night, forgot to look at the
shell versions but zsh is new enough for my tastes.

------
dholowiski
I did notice that when I upgraded Git was removed, but I can't remember if it
came with snow leopard or if I installed it.

~~~
wtallis
I don't think git has ever been included with OS X, but it has been part of
Xcode 4.x. Once you install Xcode 4.1 or later on Lion, you should have git
again. (Xcode 4.1 includes git 1.7.4.4)

~~~
dholowiski
Yes I believe you're correct. Now I'm downloading Xcode from the app store but
it's taking _forever_ I suspect Apple is getting hammered right now.

------
gapanalysis
Very reassuring. Nice to see Safari sandboxing, too.

