
In article <87wqme3v3m.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
Skip Montanaro writes:
That's why I get my Python (for Snow Leopard) from MacPorts. Unless things have changed, that probably doesn't support Mac-specific stuff, does it? You mean in the Python port or in general? MacPorts supports Mac-specific APIs in a number of ports where upstream does.
In Python, I don't know. I would assume that anything python.org supports is supported by MacPorts, though.
Yes, there are no significant differences in feature support between a python.org Python and a MacPorts-supplied Python or a Homebrew-supplied Python or a Fink-supplied Python. If you are doing any sort of a hard-core Python development work that requires the use of third-party C libraries et al, you are probably better off using a complete solution, including Python, from one of the above big-three package managers for OS X. If you need to support multiple versions of OS X, IME, MacPorts does the best job of supporting older versions (I have up-to-date MacPorts installations on OS X 10.4 through 10.9). But the primary mission for python.org installers is somewhat different: provide up-to-date, easy-to-install, batteries-included Pythons for users who are not necessarily experienced with Python itself. People who need development environments with significant third-party libraries not included with Python or OS X itself are often better served by either investing in the time to set up and become familiar with using one of the general open source distributors (MacPorts, Homebrew, et al) or by using a specialized Python distribution (e.g. for scientific users). -- Ned Deily, nad@acm.org