[Pythonmac-SIG] Bob Ippolito's synopsis of Python(s) on OS X

[eichin at metacarta.com]

> The flip side of the coin is that people coming from other platforms
> who want to make a cross-platform program will be discouraged from
> supporting the Mac at all -- because "the cross-platform toolkits are
> broken" and they don't want to have to learn a whole new
> platform-specific toolkit for that platform.

Exactly - there's no particular benefit to me to learn a mac-specific
GUI toolkit[1], because most of the things I write need to run on
Linux and Solaris as well.  Also, I don't need an especially
*advanced* toolkit - my apps simply aren't going to have particularly
impressive interfaces, it is enough that they do simple things in ways
that don't clash.  I just want to develop on my Mac so that I can run
elsewhere as well[2].

Sadly, my current "really runs everywhere" code is using *curses*.
Jython is somewhat tempting as well, after seeing (for example)
moneydance "fit in ok" under osx, after using it on linux.  Really, I
just want to know what gui toolkit is going to be an included
"battery" :-)
			_Mark_ <eichin at metacarta.com>

[1] I get a lot of benefit to being able to use aevt and the layers
above it to integrate with existing mac apps - but most of the things
I do with that don't have user interfaces at all...

[2] Though, what I *really* want is to be able to write simple apps
that work everywhere including PalmOS - python may get me to abandon
PalmOS for Symbian, once Nokia ships the python they demoed at
ETCON...