Configure script doesn't work on clean Mac

[kmpaul]

I have the perfect laptop to test this configure script with! It's brand new with nothing on it!

Currently, with no python3 installed, I get an error when trying to run the script.

[kmpaul]

Default installs of python on even the newest Macs are python 2.7.

[kmpaul]

I like the idea of portability. Most systems have some version of python installed, but we need to make this script support python 2 and 3.

[andersy005]

Default installs of python on even the newest Macs are python 2.7.

It's such a shame @ Apple 😀

I was aware of this fact, but I still chose to take a shortcut by making the script Python 3 compatible only :)

Most systems have some version of python installed, but we need to make this script support python 2 and 3.

I concur

[kmpaul]

Also, Macs don't ship with wget (only curl) which is used (by default) to download the Miniconda installer

[kmpaul]

We also need to update the CircleCI scripts to not use a base python3 container. Rather, to use a base container that represents the default environment of someone who hasn't installed anything.

And we should create build jobs for linux (SUSE linux to mimic Cheyenne) and Mac and Windows.

[kmpaul]

BTW, I'm working on an update for Mac OS. I'll submit a PR shortly.

[andersy005]

And we should create build jobs for linux (SUSE linux to mimic Cheyenne) and Mac and Windows.

I am afraid we won't be able to test it on Mac and Windows via CircleCI. Per CircleCI documentation, you need to have a subscription to a paid plan: https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/hello-world-macos/#prerequisites

[kmpaul]

Ah. I was afraid of that.

[andersy005]

And we should create build jobs for linux (SUSE linux to mimic Cheyenne)

Since conda is OS-agnostic, and all we need is wget or curl, and python from the system, do we need to do this?

[andersy005]

Are there any functionalities that are SUSE linux specific that we should be testing against?

[kmpaul]

...Well, conda is supposed to be OS-agnostic. Can we trust that it actually is?

As for SLES specific functionality, I don't know. Maybe not, and we can test with the same linux docker image but with different login shells.

[kmpaul]

We could move to Travis which now supports both MacOS and Windows.

[andersy005]

Can we trust that it actually is?

Yes, we can :)

same linux docker image but with different login shells.

Testing against different login shells (bash, tcsh) seems crucial.

Regarding Windows support, looking back at our last hackathon in June, I didn't see any single windows user. Should we focus on getting this to work on windows at the moment?

[andersy005]

Supporting windows would be worth the effort if there's an actual demand IMHO :)

[kmpaul]

We had Windows users at the ACOM Python tutorial, but I haven't seen any since.

[kmpaul]

And, frankly, the word could be spreading from early Windows users that if you have a Windows machine, it's not worth it. I'd like to make sure that isn't an issue.