[Pythonmac-SIG] Simple PyObjC question: real or vapor?

Temescal phammer at cardious.com
Mon Apr 4 07:24:31 CEST 2011


3 April 2011

My goal:

Using my MacBook (intel 64 bit dual core), OSX 10.6.7, standard System
python frameworks
(2.6,2.5,2.3), a standard python install of 2.7 (32 bit) in a Library
framework, Xcode 3.2.5, I would
like to write some GUI based python programs for the Mac.

My problem: 

1) The Apple developer article "Using PyObjC for Developing Cocoa
Applications with Python" is
hopelessly outdated.  PyObjC and py2app are not under the Developer folder
but are under the
System/Library/Frameworks/.../Extras/lib/python folder.  Xcode new project
has no option for selecting
a PyObjC application, etc.

2) The PyObjC website ambiguously states
"The stable release front is rather hazy at the moment, I'm sorry for that
and intend to fix that in
the near feature."  The indications are, this was composed some time ago, as
2.3 appears to be the
current package.  The web site advises using easy_install, but the web has
widely conflicting opinions
on easy_install's value, and moreover the recommended command "$
easy_install pyobjc=2.2b1" fails.

3) I've used easy_install successfully exactly once to install lxml.  I've
shunned MacPorts and Fink
because of the various web reports about their frailty, and also because
using them seems to be
incomprehensibly complex.  I tried a variation on the PyObjC command:
"$easy_install pyobjc"
which runs, giving a plethora of errors, and installs various eggs in
/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages,
this despite "$which python" offers up python 2.7 as the default python. 
Moreover, as reported in
another thread, _ScreenSaver fails to install.  _2to3 is not recognized as a
distribution option, suggesting
that perhaps python 3 needs to be installed, but logically, if that were the
case, it should be so
reported by easy_install.  Or, perhaps it can't find 2to3 which is in the
standard Mac python distribution.

Using "$easy_install py2app" works except for failing to install macholib,
which is apparently crucial to
running /usr/local/bin/py2applet, which it also installs.

4) Xcode 4, which I just learned about, seems to not support python at all,
according to threads here.

5) Contributions to the various threads in this forum seem to be divided
among those who, like me,
are completely confused and frustrated, and those who seem to have working
useful systems up and
running and don't see any issues at all.

My request:

So in summary, in very simple terms, can anyone tell me how to accomplish my
goal or tell me why
my goal is unachievable with my existing tools, and what if anything can be
done to correct the
situation?  I've probably put 40 hours of time into web searches and trying
various things.  It can't
be this hard, and if it really is this hard, I just won't be writing GUI
apps for the Mac, because
I really like python, more than any other language I've used.  I like python
because it is clear, it
works, it is well documented, and it is complete.  Thus far, PyObjC is none
of these.

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