[Pythonmac-SIG] newbie Mac switcher trying to set up django on Intel MacBook Pro Tiger

[Christopher Barker]

William Kyngesburye wrote:
> On Dec 20, 2007, at 5:35 AM, Ronald Oussoren wrote:
> 
>>> never provided an update within an OS-X version. (For example, if
>>> nothing else, the Apple python with Leopard doesn't build Universal
>>> Binaries when you use setup.py)
>>
>> That's easily fixable.

Yes, it is, but so have many of the other issues in the past. The point 
is that Apple isn't likely to fix it, and if they don't then, we'll have 
a lot of questions on the mailing list about things not working, at at 
the moment, the fix required digging into the Framework and editing a 
file -- not a big deal for people like me, but a support hassle.

When I first started running OS-X (10.2, I think), Apple shipped a 
version of python (2.2, maybe) with it that I tried very hard to use. I 
really liked idea of using "built-in" tools, and it loaned a lot of 
legitimacy to my push for Python as a standard tool for our organization.

However, I had to hack at it to get distutils to build stuff right, and 
there were other issues. I finally gave up and found that it was much 
easier to install and use a newer version. I don't see that anything has 
changed. Until Apple really makes it clear that they are supporting 
Python as standard part of OS-X that can be depended on, I"ll stick with 
community built versions.

  - will they provide updates?
  - will they guarantee that future versions of OS-X have the same stuff?
  - etc.

>> I'm thinking about reviving Jack's MacPython
>> addons idea: a small .mpkg that will install IDLE.app, a 64-bit
>> command-line interpreter and some small fixes (such as the distutiles
>> one).  That should make Leopard's builtin python a lot more useable
>> without requireing people to basicly install the same version of
>> python that is already on their system.

Disk space (and for most of us, bandwidth ) is so cheap these days that 
it's just not a big deal. Once you have to install something, what does 
it matter how big it is?

Even if we (which means Ronald, or Bob -- I don't have the time, skills 
or motivation!) do provide what is essentially a patch package, will 
folks be able to use it and py2app to build bundles that run on other 
systems? or bundles that will then run on future systems?

> I'm optimistic that Apple will maintain Python 
> better this time around (heck, the last security update already included 
> one for python, tho I didn't see what that was).

That's a good sign, but I'm not as optimistic as you. Besides, if you 
depend on Apple's python and the packages it includes, you're depending 
on a bunch of specific versions, and the odds are good that your app 
will then break when a new OS-X with a newer versions of everything 
Python comes out.

> I've been thinking of trying to build a 64bit python executable myself, 
> to run some non-carbon based python stuff.

That would be pretty cool. Are you thinking quad-universal? or just 
PPC64+Intel64? or just one architecture?

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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