On 5/9/25 15:37, Guenther Sohler via Discuss wrote:

Torsten: While I realize the market size is extremely out of balance in
favor of windows, please do not forget that OpenSCAD is also a linux
application.

Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

• Louis D. Brandeis

On 10.05.25 03:21, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:

Poking the wrong person here :-). I'm running Linux on my personal
systems since Debian 1.3 (bo, 1997), ignoring the even earlier
Slackware from 23 floppy disk dances. So I'm certainly not going to
forget Linux.

But back to the topic of virtual environments. It would be useful
to hear from people who want to use OpenSCAD + Python. What's the
view on this?

Right now some official OpenSCAD nightly builds have basic
support for creating a virtual environment that can be used to
install external package for use in OpenSCAD.
(Menu: File -> Python -> Create Virtual Environment ; Select an
empty folder ; Wait for the "Success" popup ; Restart OpenSCAD)

Status:

• AppImage: Works for me :-), may have issues on some distros
• Flatpak: should work wherever the flatpak itself works
• Snap: nope, not working yet, all tries so far failed
• Distro Packages: untested, probably needs some minor changes
• Windows: nope, no Python yet
• MacOS: nope, no Python yet

ciao,
Torsten.

On Sunday, May 11, 2025 at 03:31:20 PM EDT, Torsten Paul via Discuss discuss@lists.openscad.org wrote:

Windows user here, and for a long while, (Open)PythonSCAD has "just worked", and whatever changes are made, I want that to continue to be the case --- every time virtual environments come up for a Python project, I quickly find that things stop working --- it can't just be me since there's an XKCD on it:

https://xkcd.com/1987/

So please, whatever is done, have a standard/default which is simple and well-documented, so that pretty much anyone can implement it.

William

On 11.05.25 22:27, William F. Adams wrote:

Venv is exactly the (one) solution against that mess.

Sorry, but I'm reading that xkcd quite differently. The
title seems to confirm my interpretation:

"The Python environmental protection agency wants to
seal it in a cement chamber, with pictorial messages
to future civilizations warning them about the danger
of using sudo to install random Python packages."

Also note how virtual env does not appear anywhere in
the picture or in the description.

ciao,
Torsten.

I see that python+openscad has inevitably become a debate topic.
I see inevitably because openscad started with a private language, and
people thought why have that when we know python already.

The difficulty seems to be that people want a full python environment, not
simply python scripting syntax inside the software.
A complete Python seems completely incompatible with the idea of OpenScad
as a drop-in software package.

I would urge the designers and maintainers of OpenScad to separate the
ideas of Python scripting/syntax support and complete Python support.

Edmund

On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 10:27 PM William F. Adams via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:

Any post that includes an XKCD references is a SCORE ;-)

On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 4:27 PM William F. Adams via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:

On 11.05.25 22:39, edmund ronald via Discuss wrote:

Why? What problem is there?

What does drop-in software package mean here? OpenSCAD is just
a single app, so what would it replace?

As the language goes, there is only full support. The
Python in OpenSCAD is just the official CPython not
some copy or partial re-implementation.

The discussion is "only" about using external packages
from pypi.org (e.g. things normally installed via pip or
some other package manager). Is that needed, and what are
the options to do so easily.

ciao,
Torsten.

On 11.05.25 22:44, John David via Discuss wrote:

Agreed! Why add Python: https://3d.xkcd.com/353/

ciao,
Torsten.

On Sunday, May 11, 2025 at 04:40:17 PM EDT, Torsten Paul via Discuss discuss@lists.openscad.org wrote:

Okay. 

My experience has been different --- every time a Python project has become so complex that venv becomes necessary, it stops working, or it breaks something else --- but as noted, I'm neutral on this, so long as there is a default setup, which is well-documented, and which works out of the box for the base case of install by a naïve user.

William

On Sunday, May 11, 2025 at 04:39:58 PM EDT, edmund ronald edmundronald@gmail.com wrote:

Well, it has been in the past.

The arguments for the Domain Specific Language OpenSCAD are myriad and persuasive:

 - simplicity
 - reliability
 - security

It would be nice to have an option of a supported subset which could always be enabled --- but that adds so much complexity (and a potential security hole) that it seems hard to justify (though I have argued for it in the past)

Seems to work well:

https://pythonscad.org/

and I've been using it quite successfully on a project:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

which before Python became an option was so hobbled by the lack of persistent variables, and the impossibility of writing out a file with a specific file extension and contents that it was essentially useless.

They are separate.

The default is: OpenSCAD as OpenSCAD --- just there is an (unused) hook to Python inside.

It is only if a user chooses to enable Python, and then goes to the trouble to load or create a Python file that one has to worry about Python --- otherwise, just ignore it, and it shouldn't trouble you.

Hopefully though, this will capture all of the energy and effort and creativity which folks were constantly pouring into using Python to make OpenSCAD code --- really looking forward to seeing what comes of this being readily available to the folks who are interested in it.

I would like to take this moment to note that I think that the idea of the developers making use of Python internally to work up features for OpenSCAD itself has merit and potential, and if any code or documentation (such as it is) which I have written would be useful for this, folks are welcome to it.

William