[Numpy-discussion] Beginner Needing Help with Installation

[David Warde-Farley]

On 19-Nov-09, at 5:41 PM, Scot Denhalter wrote:

> Yes, I am using the Snow Leopard OSX.  Should I be coding through  
> the Xcode
> interface and not Python's IDLE shell?

Using the Xcode IDE is not necessary and probably far from optimal for  
what you're doing; however Xcode installs all of the command line  
tools (gcc, g++, make) that are typically needed to build packages.

> You distinguish between system wide installation and user  
> installation. You
> may have seen from my post to Eric, that I found and installed .dmg
> downloads for numpy and matplotlib.  I have tried to figure out  
> where these
> installed themselves, but I haven't found them in the user folder.   
> I assume
> they have been installed system wide.  Is this going to be a problem?

The DMGs install in system-wide directories, /Library/Frameworks/ 
Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages I'm  
guessing. The --user stuff should be used if you are installing  
against the Python that Apple ships with OS X. They also ship an old &  
crusty version of NumPy, I think.

Unless Apple has relocated their Python install for 10.6 (it used to  
be in /System) it looks like you downloaded Python from Python.org  
since it's in /Library, in which case Pierre's fears about messing up  
the system install aren't a problem.

David