[IPython-dev] iPython binary wheels for OS-X

[Chris Barker - NOAA Federal]

On Dec 9, 2013, at 10:52 PM, MinRK <benjaminrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> By the way on this one, Apple has made this extra complicated: 10.9 ships with numpy, scipy, and matplotlib (among other things - setuptools, twisted, etc.). It ships these in an Extras directory, which is, as far as `sys.path` priority is concerned, part of the stdlib. That means that you will not be able to `pip install` any of those packages with System Python on OS X 10.9.  Or, more precisely, pip will install them, but after the successful install, they will never be importable. If

FWIW, it has always been the case that Apple treats its python install
like a system lib, and we all should treat it as such, too. I.e, never
upgrade anything in it.

And Apple never upgrades it either, even bug fix releases.

I've always advised people to install a new python for their own
development--generally the python.org one.

It just get more important the more stuff Apple ships. Ironically,
Apple's python gets more useful out of the box, too.

> you want to install or upgrade numpy, scipy, or setuptools on OS X,

Or anything else... Even if you _could_ upgrade stuff, you really
don't want to mess with system links--you never know what's using
them.

-Chris