[Pythonmac-SIG] python version confusion; can someone provide some clarity, please?

[Gary Church]

Hello and happy new year!

I'm new to python and to this list but am a happy several year convert  
to OS X (now using leopard).

I hope this isn't some kind of noob question that upsets the  
subscribers to this list :-)

I realize that leopard ships with its own python installation but that  
it is somewhat outdated compared to what's currently available (the  
latest being python 3.0). Not long ago, I installed, I believe,  
MacPython (ver. 2.5). At least when I enter "which python" I get:

Macintosh-4:~ gary$ which python
/usr/bin/python

and when I enter "python" from within my home directory, I get:

Macintosh-4:~ gary$ python
Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jan 17 2008, 19:35:17)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 >>>

But suppose I want to install version 2.6 or the newly released 3.0;  
where do they get installed (will they overwrite previous  
installations) and if they occupy their own territory, how do I run  
the various versions? I assume each separate version has its own  
version of IDLE too...

Is there some way of finding out which pythons I have currently  
installed and their locations (paths?)

Thanks for your help,
Gary

Gary Church
gary.church1 at comcast.net