[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

[Rodney Somerstein]

At 8:29 PM -0800 2/8/06, Bill Janssen wrote:
>I've made up a sample page, at 
>http://bill.janssen.org/new-macpython-page.html.
>
>This is the kind of thing I'd like to see replace the page at
>http://www.python.org/download/download_mac.html.

Bill,

As the sort of somewhat sophisticated novice python developer (how is 
that for a contradiction of terms?) that you folks seem to be 
targeting, I really like this page. It could use a little bit of 
cleaning up, such as possibly describing why to use IDLE, how using a 
newer version of Python can help the user, etc. It is a great start.

I look forward to seeing something as straightforward as this 
replacing the current page.

Now, what I really want to see added is something that explains how I 
can write a program in Python on the Mac and create standalone 
applications that can run on someone else's computer without them 
having to install anything else. The descriptions of packaging for 
Python that I have read here are fairly arcane and not at all 
straightforward for new developers. As much as I like the general 
idea of Python, this is the one thing that seems to make the language 
not ready for end-user applications.

It might seem that this isn't Mac specific. But, since the packaging 
of Python apps on the Mac seems to be different than on other 
platforms, having a link to it from the main page would be a useful 
thing. It could certainly be far down the page rather than right at 
the beginning. Even better would be a discussion of how to move such 
apps to other operating systems as well. Python may be more elegant 
than Java, but I can easily give someone a Java app to run on their 
computer. I'm not confident I could do this for much beyond 
helloworld with Python and expect it to run since there wouldn't 
likely be the libraries that I need.

Thanks,

-Rodney