> > A good entry page tries to speak usefully to all of these communities > > at the same time, without speaking down to any of them. > > 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?
No. That's why the *first* page is so important. That's why I put the example of the terminal and "type 'python'" on there. > 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. Not for Python newbies. They've never *seen* the more advanced versions. Python 2.3 all by itself is a pretty nifty programming experience, to someone who's not a developer, but wants to write a script or a simple program. Experienced Python users will of course probably want to install the newer version first. > 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. I agree. If the 2.4.x installer were bundled with TigerPython24Fix and some quick-start IDLE app into a single installer, that would be great, and an improvement over the current situation. (And could it please *not* have the word "fix" in the title?) By the way, Apple seems to believe that the educational environment is important. If someone wanted to write up a page called, "How to get your Mac-using class started with Turtle graphics in 10 minutes", I think that would be a positive contribution. > 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. I like this idea, too. Can we make it happen? Any volunteers? Bill _______________________________________________ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - Pythonmac-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig