[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

[Kevin Ollivier]

Hi Bob,

On Feb 10, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Bob Ippolito wrote:

[snip]

> Do you really think that there is a large enough audience that would
> be willing to read pages of documentation, but not be willing to
> install anything?

Yes. (Though there shouldn't need to be several pages of docs.) Many  
users (that I know of) ask themselves the following before  
downloading software, especially OSS software, and even more so for  
"non-official" builds:

1) Will this affect my existing install or do something I don't want  
it to do?

2) Can I uninstall it?

3) Are the promises that 'everything will work fine' on the web site  
really true?

4) What can I do if it DOES mess up my install and I can't install  
it / uninstaller doesn't work?

Have you ever installed some third-party software that crapped on  
your machine in one way or another? Unfortunately, for most of us  
that's a rhetorical question, not a real one. ;-) In OSS, people just  
deal with this because often they know how to fix it themselves. It  
just pisses them off and tells them to stay away.

For people who are less knowledgeable about that stuff, though, these  
are scary questions and because they feel they may not be able to  
correct the issue without a full restore, they don't install things  
on a whim. Application bundles are far less scary because you can  
just dump them in the trash, but with this kind of stuff you can't.

And note, before *anyone* mistakes me, I'm not saying *anything*  
about the quality of the MacPython 2.4 package. I use it myself, and  
I think it's great. And lots of people will download it, no doubt.  
But new people don't have the sort of background with the community  
we do. They don't know who's on these lists, what kinds of software  
they produce, what their standards of quality are, etc. Some of those  
people would just like to avoid finding out those answers the hard  
way if they can, and I personally understand that feeling. Some basic  
information about what problems they could expect with Apple Python  
would let them prioritize what is most important to them, and what  
they can expect by going either route. For example, I'd do something  
like the following for a download section:

"""
Download the latest Python

While Apple includes Python with OS X, their version does not get  
updated often and contains some bugs and potential issues, and cannot  
be used to deploy OS X application bundles. For these reasons, many  
people could benefit from upgrading their Python installation to the  
latest version from pythonmac.org. For more information, see the FAQ  
"Differences between Apple's Python and MacPython 2.4?". See also  
"What should I expect when upgrading to MacPython 2.4?" To upgrade  
your Python, take the following steps:

<steps to install MacPython 2.4 here, I figure these will change if  
we get the path issues, etc. sorted out before it goes live, so I'll  
leave this blank for now>
"""

> The situation Karl describes wouldn't have happened by the computer
> teacher's own hand.. it was only possible because someone
> knowledgeable was in the room to tell them about Python and also to
> give them a minimal UNIX crash course.  A web page might be ammo for
> someone like Karl to give out, but it likely wouldn't have done
> anything for the teacher without Karl.
>
> With a downloadable package that sorts out all the issues that need
> to be documented, then we would be able to skirt the whole issue of
> the UNIX crash course.  Download this package, double-click to
> install, double-click to start IDLE (or whatever) here.  Yes, it
> might be easier for a teacher with 20 computers to teach rather than
> install, but how often is that the case?

I don't know; do you? What if there are lots of people like that not  
on these lists? What if they do these things but we just don't hear  
about it because right now it all just works fine? The community on  
the mailing lists are typically not representative of the entire  
community, be it Python or any other OSS project. Many, many people  
passively use software rather than actively become involved in the  
community. (This is the only Python list I'm on, for example, and it  
wasn't until I wanted to help Robin, Stefan and Jack move the  
wxPythonMac port forward that I was on wx lists either.)

These passive users are completely 'under the radar' in terms of what  
we perceive the community to be, are they not? I'd rather assume many  
of these people do exist than that they don't, because I'd rather  
consider and address their needs rather than ignore them. As Ocham's  
Razor states, simple as possible but no simpler, and if we're just  
ignoring whole target groups of users, then I think we've moved  
towards "too simple". And again, I'm not talking about support here,  
I'm talking about documentation. None of us has to support any user  
we don't want to support.

> I also think that if we give people the option to use Python without
> installing anything, then they'll choose that option and be
> disappointed because the experience with a newer version has a few
> years more polish and bug fixes... and can simply get them farther
> because it doesn't have any of the limitations that the pre-installed
> one has.

I was never disappointed in Apple's Python. (Annoyed at the site- 
packages move, though.) But we're playing dueling use cases. If you  
don't hit the bug cases, and don't care about upgrading extensions,  
you're are pretty much fine. If not, you're disappointed. Simple as  
that. Let's not tell users "we know what's best for you". Frankly,  
even though I use MacPython 2.4 now (due to a need to upgrade), I  
used Python 2.3 just fine for a long time even under Tiger, and all  
this business about me being 'disappointed' never materialized; I was  
perfectly happy with it and it made me wonder why people were so  
intent on telling me not to use something that works perfectly fine  
for me.

I think it discredits us to have this attitude of "Apple's Python  
doesn't work at all", because when people try it and it does work (as  
it did for me), it looks like we're just showing an irrational bias.  
If we instead gave them specific information about what doesn't work,  
for Apple Python with the latest Tiger and Panther releases (some of  
which I didn't know until yesterday!), and that MacPython 2.4 fixes  
these problems, I think we'd come across as helpful and supportive  
instead. Python users are newbies, but not children. They're ability  
to think is just fine, they just need information, in a clear,  
concise, and jargon-free format, about the products to make an  
informed decision. Teaching a Python to fish rather than giving them  
a fish, and all that. ;-) You already wrote a lot of the  
'documentation' for this, someone just needs to gather it up and put  
whatever's not there yet into the FAQ, and most importantly, make  
that FAQ visible from python.org.

We can avoid cluttering the front page with all sorts of information  
for special cases by creating links rather than writing paragraph  
upon paragraph. People do click on links, and if we make good use of  
them the front page doesn't have to look complex and cluttered.  
That's what links were made for. :-)

Thanks,

Kevin

> Another thing to consider would be to do something similar to Movable
> Python:
> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/movpy/
>
> In this case we would distribute Python as an application, and that
> application when run by itself could have options to "make this
> Python the default from Terminal" or something.
>
> -bob
>
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