[Pythonmac-SIG] Status of MacPython?

[Jeffrey P Shell]

> It would be really useful to me to see some brief comments on the future
> of Mac Python from Jack and/or Just, even though I know that crystal-ball
> stuff is inexact. Is it anticipated that standard python will compile for
> Mac OS X or will a special distribution be required? Will Mac Python
> continue as a separate entity? Are additional Mac Python releases (i.e.,
> the 1.5.2 final) anticipated? If MacPython will continue in the future,
> what's the prognosis of the current development effort?

It wasn't terribly difficult building Python 1.5.2 on MacOS X Server, but
Mac OS X was quite a different story, mostly due to it being so new and in
development stage that none of the configuration scripts would catch the
right things.  I tried and tried and hacked away at these, but it is
something that is nowhere near my realm of expertise and when I finally got
Python to compile without breaking, the compiled code wasn't always in the
right place (it seems that some stuff went into the .dylib file, while a
majority went into the .a).  At this point, I gave up.

I don't think it will be too hard getting (normal) Python to compile on
MacOS X, it'll just require someone smarter than I am about configuration
script programming and all the wild new features of MacOS X's Unix side.  (I
bet it's a fair amount of trickery getting a good Python built on Darwin
too).  MacPython will run, but it would be in the "Blue Box" area until
someone takes the time to make it Carbon complient.  As I'm not a MacOS
Developer (just a long-time-happy-user), I don't know the difficulty in
this.

Tip Top (www.tiptop.com) makes a product called Objective Everything which
opens up OpenStep/YellowBox/Cocoa (whatever flavor NeXT's old rockin
framework is called this month) to Python, Perl, and TCL.  It runs on MacOS
X and Server, but currently is only Python 1.4.  There is supposed to be a
new release sometime (hopefully soon) that uses Python 1.5.

Of interest is that TipTop says that Objective Everything says (and I
quote): "Carbon development and scripting. Objective-Everything is
Carbon-ready! It lets you leverage the Carbon API from any of the Objective
languages."  (from the MacOS X Server press release for OE).  So there is
another option for MacOS X and Python development for Mac OS (Carbon)
applications, and presumably it'll be an alternative to
jumping-through-appleevents to script other applications via Python.

That's all I know on the MacOS X side.  I think MacPython will continue to
be MacOS "Classic" (I think that's the official term from Apple) based.  A
unixy build of Python for MacOS X's BSDI underbelly will be a different
beast, and there'll also be the commercial-but-free-for-some-uses Objective
Everything for Cocoa/Carbon development in MacOS X and Python.

(As a note: when installing LinuxPPC, don't get too cocky reordering your
partitions with pdisk.  *sigh*.  Especially, don't say "I hope my regular
MacOS Partition has survived all this" jokingly, because, well, it didn't).