[Pythonmac-SIG] Python for Mac OS X (again)

[Tony McDonald]

On 2/8/02 10:25 am, "Jack Jansen" <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl> wrote:

> 
> On Friday, August 2, 2002, at 11:02 , Aureli Soria Frisch wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> Both for Tkinter and for wxPython you need a framework build of
>>> Python. This rules out the current fink distribution, which is a
>>> static Python. There's a good framework Python distribution at the
>>> wxPython site.
>> 
>> What is the difference between a framework build of Python and a static
>> Python?
> 
> A framework build is a particular way of building that plays nicely with
> OSX. All of the Python functionality (the core shared library, the Lib
> directories, etc) are stored in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework.
> The commandline "python" interpreter is a tiny skeleton program that
> links against this. But, more importantly, there's also an alternative
> interpreter, Python.app, which is a fullblown MacOSX Application (as
> opposed to a unix commandline tool). To be able to connect to the window
> server with full functionality you must be running as such a fullblown
> .app, it seems.
> 

Thanks for the explanation Jack, as someone who's using unix python
exclusively (but got there from OS9 MacPython), that's helped to clear
things up a little.

I'd like to use the framework python in conjunction with the module browser
and IDE to code and debug scripts that use unix modules such as MySQLdb and
the _xmlplus libraries. Is this something that is going to be doable
perhaps?

As a test for myself, I downloaded the wx python framework and installed
that, I tried to build the IDE in the old way as '% python2.2 BuildIDE.py',
but got an error that PythonInterpreter was not found on sys.path. I'll have
a dig around and see if I can get that to work when I get a spare hour or
two.

Anyhow, thanks for the explanation, things are slowly gelling in my head
about all these versions of python...

Cheers
Tone.
-- 
Dr Tony McDonald,  Assistant Director, FMCC, http://www.fmcc.org.uk/
The Medical School, Newcastle University Tel: +44 191 243 6140
A Zope list for UK HE/FE  http://www.fmcc.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/zope