[Pythonmac-SIG] Trouble installing Tkinter with 2.3.5/10.2

[Kevin Walzer]

Anthony Kozar wrote:
> Hello again,
> 
> I want to thank everyone for their responses on this issue -- I appreciate
> the help!  I did get Python 2.3.7 with Tkinter to build on my 10.2 machine
> and it was incredibly straightforward.  (I forgot to install WASTE, so the
> IDE did not build, but that's OK for now).

Glad we were able to help. :-)

> 
> I am sorry but not surprised I suppose that so many people feel that 10.2 is
> "very ancient", "pretty old", or "obsolete".  I bought the computer running
> 10.2 only 5-1/2 years ago.  Sure it could run 10.5, but I long ago decided
> that I did not want to play Apple's "upgrade game" anymore.  My Beige G3 can
> only run up to 10.2 but it is more comfortable running OS 9.  These
> computers satisfy most of my needs quite well.
> 
> I will point out that AFAICT, the Windows installers for Python 2.5 support
> Windows 95.  The equivalent Mac OS version (timewise) would be System 7.5!
> Just last year, I completed the Carbonization of a fairly large program.
> The program now runs on MacOS 7, 8, 9, and 10.2 through at least 10.4 (I
> assume 10.5 will work too -- the only reason it does not support 10.0 or
> 10.1 is because CoreMIDI is not functional in those versions).  This is
> probably a specialized case, but it was not too difficult to maintain
> support for System 7 in this program.
> 
> Before anyone gets upset by these comments, none of this is intended as a
> criticism.  I am merely griping about the state of Mac development because I
> have been rather frustrated the last couple of weeks trying to get several
> open-source programs running on my 10.2 machine.
> 
> I do understand that the MacPython development team is probably much smaller
> than the Windows team.  And the Mac OS and platform have undergone several
> very significant changes during the last 13 years and Apple makes it much
> more difficult to support older systems than Microsoft does.  In fact, I
> think the blame lies with Apple due to the pace of their OS releases and
> their attitude that anything older than 2-3 years is not worth supporting.
> I am just continually saddened to see so many developers (especially for
> open-source projects) who either adopt this attitude or are forced to
> support only recent systems by the circumstances thrust upon them.

Yes, I think the responsibility here lies with Apple rather than with 
third-party developers. Apple is very aggressive about updating the 
capabilities of the OS and the pace of development makes maintaining 
backwards compatability a challenge. It's different from Windows. 
However, if you want to develop this platform that's what you live with.

> 
>> Any reason you have to support 10.2, apart from the fact that it's what
>> your machine runs? The user base for 10.2 is negligible.
> 
> I have been asked by a potential client to write a GUI for a cross-platform
> program written in Python.  The request was to support "all platforms" that
> the underlying program itself will run on.  That program has an interactive
> commandline-like interface and is 100% pure Python, requiring only Python
> 2.3 to run.  It is distributed for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and even Mac OS
> 9.  The Python 2.3 minimum thus includes OS X 10.2 as a potential target for
> the GUI.  I've already informed the client that OS 9 support is unlikely.  I
> suppose that 10.2 support may be iffy if I have to upgrade to complete the
> project. 
>  
> Maybe there are not many 10.2 users left.  But I still frequently hear from
> people who are "just now" giving up their OS 9 machines for something newer.
> It would be interesting to see some real numbers for how many 10.2 users
> there are.

The Omni Group keep statistics on the OS version of folks downloading 
their software: 99.7% of their users are on Leopard or Tiger.  While 
this isn't absolute, it provides an interesting snapshot. More info: 
http://update.omnigroup.com/. I'd say, based on this, that there 
probably aren't many 10.2 users left--at least not many users who are in 
the market to install new software, free or otherwise, on their machines.

> 
> Sorry for the long "rant".  MacPython is a great piece of software and I
> appreciated the help getting Tkinter working on 10.2.  Unfortunately, other
> tools that I was hoping to use on this project (such as Guib, the successor
> to SpecTcl) are proving to be much more difficult to install on 10.2 than
> Tkinter was.
> 

Again, glad to help.

Best,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com