[masto]

Ran it and it crapped out with a huge backtrace. I spotted `./build_bundled.sh: line 21: cmake: command not found` in it, so I guessed I needed cmake installed. `brew install cmake` and try again. Then it crapped out with `Compatibility with CMake < 3.5 has been removed from CMake.`. Then I give up.

This is typical of what happens any time I try to run something written in Python. It may be easier than setting up an NVIDIA GPU, but that's a low bar.

[H3X_K1TT3N]

This is absolutely every experience I have with python.

[simonw]

Which Python version was that? Could be that MLX have binary wheels for some versions but not others.

[masto]

Adding `-p 3.12` made it work. Leaving that here in case it helps someone.

[porridgeraisin]

Aha, knew you wouldn't give up. Not what our kind do

[hnfong]

Never gonna give you up…

(Sorry I’ll excuse myself now…

[jack_pp]

for the record these problems don't really exist on linux in my experience

[mobiuscog]

Python problems exist on all platforms. It's just that most people using Python have figured out their 'happy path' workarounds in the past and keep using them.

Python is awesome in many ways, one of my favourite languages, but unless you are happy with venv manipulation (or live in Conda), it's often a nightmare that ends up worse than DLL-hell.

[masto]

Python is in a category of things you can't just use without being an expert in the minutiae. This is unfortunate because there are a lot of people who are not Python developers who would like to run programs which happen to be written in Python.

Python is by no means alone in this or particularly egregious. Having been a heavy Perl developer in the 2000s, I was part of the problem. I didn't understand why other people had so much trouble doing things that seemed simple to me, because I was eating, breathing, and sleeping Perl. I knew how to prolong the intervals between breaking my installation, and how to troubleshoot and repair it, but there was no reason why anyone who wanted to deploy, or even develop on, my code base should have needed that encyclopedic knowledge.

This is why, for all their faults, I count containers as the biggest revolution in the software industry, at least for us "backend" folks.