Rodney Somerstein wrote:
If you care about the Mac (particularly in terms of being able to use
PyObjC and/or py2app), stick with 2.x for now. Otherwise, it doesn't
matter much which exact version of 3.x you use.
This brings up a question for me as to what the state of Python is on
the Mac. Python 3.x has been a available for quite awhile. I see on
Python.org that 3.1.2 is listed as the current download for the Mac.
What exactly is the current state of this? What doesn't work on the Mac
in Python 3 and what are current plans related to this?
Honestly, I don't know if the Mac is in any poorer position with regard
to Python 3 as any other platform.
NONE of the major packages I use have been ported to Py3 on any
platform: numpy, SciPy, wxPython. Many of those are well supported on
the Mac, so I don't think there will be any issues there.
The Mac Python community seems pretty small.
There are a LOT of folks using Python on teh Mac -- the community that
is pretty small is the community of folks doing mac-specific stuff --
PyObjC, for instance. It getting to be that the the fradction of
development that is done for desktop apps is pretty small -- and that
that is done is often done with cross-platfrom tools.
The only folks that care about py2app are folks doing desktop
development and the only folks that care about PyObjC are folks doing
desktop development for Mac-only applications.
If that is what you want to do, then you are right, the community is
pretty small -- is there a larger one built around an open-source
dynamic language? I have no idea.
Given that Python seems to
position itself as a major programming and scripting language, it seems
rather strange that there is so little effort placed into providing
first class support for the second most popular computing platform.
It does have first class support for scripting, command line stuff, web
app development, etc -- one reason the there are so many more users of
Python on the Mac than there are folks on this list is that all that
stuff "just works".
-Chris
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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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Emergency Response Division
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