[Pythonmac-SIG] 2.3 vs 2.4 - Installer myopia

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 16-apr-2006, at 0:44, Daniel Lord wrote:

>
>> On Apr 15, 2006, at 5:57 PM, Bob Ippolito wrote:
>> Installers for extensions are specific to a particular version of
>> Python anyway.
> But is that always necessary? I am sure it is sometimes,  
> particularly when the OS changes dramatically like from 10.3 to 10.4.
> But what about the case of the Alias research product I wonder.
>

Yes it is necessary, ABI for python extensions is not a completely  
stable ABI although you can often continue using extensions for an  
older release of python with a new release. More importantly, the  
site-packages directories for two major releases of python (such as  
python 2.3.x and python 2.4.x) are at different locations, hence the  
newer version won't even see the extensions you installed for the  
older one.

>> Mac OS X installers don't try and detect Python,
>> they hard code where they expect to find it (win32 installers do
>> search though).  Your problem is that you found the wrong
>> installer, not that the installer found the wrong Python.
>
> Interesting lack of awareness and function in the Mac OS X  
> installers. Is it by design or due to a limitation in options in  
> the installer tools?
> Why don't they behave like some well-mannered installers I have  
> used which locate *all* the potential paths and let you decide  
> which one is used?

That due to a limitation in Apple's installer tool, you'll have to  
ask Apple why they don't fix this.

> And if the extension only works with say Python 2.4 on OS X 10.3,  
> it could either force acceptance of that one or if it didn't find  
> it, it could refuse to install.
That's up to whoever build the installer. bdist_mpkg (part of py2app)  
seems to check if the right version of python is installed.

Ronald

>
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