[Numpy-discussion] Binary releases

[William Ray Wing]

On Sep 15, 2013, at 9:04 PM, Charles R Harris <charlesr.harris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> Numpy 1.8 is about ready for an rc1, which brings up the question of which binary builds so put up on sourceforge. For Windows maybe

[byte]

> 	  For Mac there is first the question of OS X versions, (10.5?), 10.6, 10.7, 10.8. I don't know if some builds work on more than one OS X version. The 10.5 version is a bit harder to come by than 10.6 and up. It looks like 10.9 is coming up, but it isn't out yet. I have no idea what Python version to match up these, but assuming all of them, then
> 	• OS X 10.6  python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, compiled with native compiler, linked with Accelerate.
> 	• OS X 10.7  python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, compiled with native compiler, linked with Accelerate.
> 	• OS X 10.8  python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, compiled with native compiler, linked with Accelerate.
> That seems like a lot. It is fairly easy to compile from source on the mac these days, are all those binary packages really needed?
> 
> I don't know what I am doing with the binary stuff, so any suggestions are welcome.


If you will forgive an observation from a Mac user and (amateur) developer.  I have twice tried to build Numpy from source and both times failed.  The problem was that I couldn't find a single comprehensive set of directions that started from a virgin system (nothing but Apple's python and Xcode) and proceed to working copies of Numpy (and of course Matplotlib).

Long time users know all about the differences between SourceForge, Github, and such.  But bootstrapping pip, homebrew, macports, and similar was totally opaque to me.

Sorry for the rant, but what I'm trying to say is that if there were such a recipe and it was clearly pointed to, then the need for a lengthy list of binaries would be pretty much moot.

Thanks for listening,
Bill