[Pythonmac-SIG] Additional binary packages for Python2.3 on 10.2.6

[Bob Ippolito]

On Friday, Sep 5, 2003, at 21:31 America/New_York, Andrew Straw wrote:

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> On Saturday, Sep 6, 2003, at 00:29 Australia/Adelaide, Bob Ippolito 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Thursday, Sep 4, 2003, at 20:34 America/New_York, Andrew Straw 
>> wrote:
>>>> 	chaco (does this have a good OS X backend yet?)
>>>
>>> It works as well on OS X as it works anywhere else, as far as my 
>>> usage goes, anyway.  That is to say I know wxPython based rendering 
>>> and interaction works (check out the cool demos!) and PDF rendering 
>>> works (when reportlab is installed).
>>
>> I still don't like wxPython for Mac yet.. Every time I take a look at 
>> it I see a bunch of nasty bugs and decide to write a mac only GUI or 
>> just write more than one.  Though I can imagine it does it's job for 
>> what chaco needs.
>
> Since I don't know what platform I'm going to be on from one day to 
> the next, let alone what my main personal computer will be when I next 
> buy one, I've stayed clear of any platform-specific stuff.  I can see, 
> however, that Cocoa makes fantastic apps, and with Panther it's so 
> cool to think one could make Python scripts that download in < 1 MB 
> that will truly be double-clickable by the masses and will be 
> commercial quality...

I've pretty much sold my soul to Apple, I really hate using win32 and 
linux doesn't have the applications I need for work.  I'm just so much 
more productive on the Mac, though I do waste a LOT of free time 
porting things to the Mac that I'd get "for free" elsewhere.  I'm 
really not concerned with the size of bundles, for anything 
sufficiently useful someone will download a few megs.

>
> Plus, I'm so used to working with bugs from my initial forays in 
> Tkinter that wxPython seems like a godsend.  Also, I can't say I've 
> found more than a couple of bugs in wxPython/Mac...  Are you referring 
> to rendering/appearance bugs or actual functionality bugs?

Yeah, I refuse to use Tkinter for the same reasons on OS X.  Last I 
checked, it was both appearance and functionality bugs.. the former 
more common than the later.

>
>> I remember reading about Chaco and how it was half-modeled after 
>> CoreGraphics.. I wonder why it doesn't have a backend for it yet?  
>> Maybe I'll write one if I find the time.
>
> My (near zero) understanding is that the PDF rendering backend is a 
> Quartz(?, or Aqua?, whatever...)
> workalike...  I don't think the GUIs themselves are.  Again, this is 
> all "I think I remember that..."

You're probably correct, though there definitely should be a Quartz 
backend for OS X.  Unfortunately that means someone like me will 
probably have to write it :)

>
> PS Using ATLAS is one of the main reasons why I do use fink.  I don't 
> find fink evil, but then I try not to compile too many mach-o binaries 
> that I inflict upon the general public...  I can see Apple's linking 
> stuff is really clever, but I still don't understand it all...

Apple's linking stuff is really.. peculiar, to say the least.  It's 
more than a few mouthfuls to explain the how's and why's, but I know my 
way around it far too well.  As far as ATLAS goes, vecLib links in most 
or all of ATLAS (though the symbols aren't exported.. ugh), and does 
some magic so it detects your CPU at runtime and links in the proper 
optimizations for G3, G4, or G5 (in Panther, maybe the latest seed of 
10.2.x beta).  Which is really cool, and hard to do on your own.

> PPS Speaking of all the above leads me to a question you might be able 
> to help me on-- I'd like to get back to the mainstream wxPython 
> distros so I don't have to roll my own, but I think they're all 
> compiled with libtiff libzip, libjpeg, and the like statically linked, 
> which causes dynamic linking namespace conflicts with the libraries in 
> use by PIL and pygame...  I remember you made a comment about the best 
> way to deal with this on one of the mailing lists, but I couldn't 
> quite translate it to this particular case.  (Probably just because 
> I'm sitting here really trying to write up my thesis and not get too 
> into the specifics of linking binary files on Mac OS X, which is so, 
> so, so far from the neurophysiology of insect visual motion > detection!)

This is the exact reason why I've said on multiple occasions "DO NOT 
USE -undefined suppress -flat_namespace".  A lot of people still use 
that crap for compatibility with old pythons, and it screws up the 
whole deal for people like you who are using a sane version of Python.  
Chances are, the wx guys are using flat_namespace, so you're pretty 
much screwed.  I'm pretty sure that my PackageManager versions of PIL 
and pygame use two level namespaces and shouldn't have this problem on 
their own.  Maybe it's time for me to roll my own distro of wxPython 
that's compiled in a reasonable way?

-bob