[Python-Dev] OS X Installer for 3.0.1 and supported versions

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Guido van Rossum writes:

 > Actually I expect that to be fairly common among people who are not so
 > much into technology, strapped for funds but appreciative of quality,
 > bought an expensive Mac once expecting it would last a long time, and
 > are hanging on to it until it dies (which could be a long time). Their
 > hardware may not support newer OS X versions.

I'm quite familiar with that.  Thing is, although I still have a
Panther box running, I gave up on updating *anything* on it when
Leopard came out, because I had to spend too much time fighting with
bitrot in packages which stopped working after upgrades on my Tiger
box, let alone on Panther.  The Panther box still does the stuff that
I want it to do, but it isn't going to learn any new tricks, I'm
afraid.

If that is a more general phenomenon, I have to wonder whether people
with old Macs with old OSes are going to be all that interested in
shiny new Pythons.

I think that the extra effort of building an extra installer for 10.4
will be well-repaid in better support for 10.5 users, and the option
of abandoning the 10.4 installer in a few months if it doesn't get
very many downloads.