[Pythonmac-SIG] Status of MacPython?

[Joseph J. Strout]

At 3:36 PM -0400 08/09/99, Jim Harrison wrote:

>working with both Mac and Linux and who would like to see an efficient
>built-in solution for the tab vs. space problem in line indenting...

I also go back and forth between MacOS and Linux a lot, using Python 
on both (there's a lot of Python CGI on my web site these days).  I 
just use tabs for everything.  Works for me -- what's wrong with this 
solution?

I use pico when editing in Unix (obviously I do this as little as 
possible!), but I've heard that emacs is quite configurable; I think 
you can make it do four-character tabs, at which point it's just like 
the Mac.

>other outstanding issues. I would also vote for syntax coloring in the
>IDE even if multiline strings are not cleanly handled.

Hear hear!  :)

>It would be really useful to me to see some brief comments on the future
>of Mac Python from Jack and/or Just, even though I know that crystal-ball
>stuff is inexact. Is it anticipated that standard python will compile for
>Mac OS X or will a special distribution be required?

I'm not Jack or Just, but in case my $0.02 is worth that much, from 
what I know of MacOS X the standard Unix distribution should compile 
out of the box (at least, as much as any unix package compiles 
out-of-the-box for any new flavor of Unix).

> Will Mac Python continue as a separate entity?

This is a good question.  I'd guess that some Mac-specific modules 
will always be in order, for accessing Mac services not available on 
other platforms.  Whether we'll need an entirely separate build is 
unclear.  Probably we will, as most Mac users won't want to follow 
the usual Unix method of downloading things as source code and 
wrestling with it for a few hours to get it to compile before using 
it.

> Are additional Mac Python releases (i.e.,
>the 1.5.2 final) anticipated?

A good question... Jack, Just?

Cheers,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Biocomputing -- The Salk Institute |
|    joe@strout.net             http://www.strout.net              |
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