[Pythonmac-SIG] State of Python on the Mac

[Jack Jansen]

On Monday, Mar 3, 2003, at 04:09 Europe/Amsterdam, Pete Versteegen 
wrote:

> Hi Bob,
>
> You seem to imply having a problem with Fink.  Could you elaborate on 
> the
> reservations you have about Fink?

I'm not 100% happy with fink either. I'm using it now on one machine, 
because it's the only reasonable way
to get readline support in Python at the moment (not to mention latex 
so I can finally work on
the Python documentation myself), but it's already been breaking the
Python build in subtle ways. Nothing serious, but just a bit of work 
each time. Every time I install
something new with fink something else will be pulled in along, which 
is then used for the Python build
but which has subtly different header files or something. And I'm not 
really aware I installed
a new libncurses, just because some other fink package needs it...

And it broke something seriously too: it put a new tar in /sw/bin/tar 
which is 100% incompatible
with Apple's tar in /usr/bin (tarfiles created with /sw/bin/tar will 
yield 8.3 filenames when
unpacked with Apple's tar. For crying out loud.....)

But I'm only using it on one machine, so I can be reasonably sure that 
I don't contaminate the
Python source tree with fink-isms.

All that said, I think that fink is a brilliant tool for some category 
of people. Myself included, probably,
I wouldn't have bothered installing LaTex and all that jazz without it.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman