[Pythonmac-SIG] Is MacPython the right tool for me?

[Corran Webster]

On Wednesday, May 1, 2002, at 06:54  AM, Jack Jansen wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, May 1, 2002, at 01:53 , Robin Siebler wrote:
>
>> Let me prefice this by saying that I haven't used a Mac in 5 years 
>> and I
>> haven't used MPW in over 5 years.  With that said, here is what I am 
>> trying
>> to do:  I have some command-line tools that run in MPW.  I would like 
>> to
>> create some automated scripts to test these CLT's.  Is MacPython the 
>> right
>> tool for this?  If not, what would be?
>
> You could use MacPython with the mpwsystem module (in :Mac:Contrib) and 
> the toolserver, but it would probably be a bit convoluted. Somebody did 
> an MPW version of Python a long long time ago, but I'm pretty sure that 
> that isn't maintained anymore (i.e. macpythonistas who know anything 
> about this: please speak up!).

Back in the 1.5.2 days I experimented with getting Python to compile as 
an MPW tool.  As I recall, most of it compiled without too much pain (I 
think there was a fair amount of MPW support already in the source) and 
I ended up with something that had basic functionality: you could use 
simple scripts interactively.  However internal file system access was 
broken - I couldn't run a script in a .py file because python couldn't 
access the file system - and I gave up before I resolved this issue.

I never made what I did public, and I don't know if I still have the 
makefiles and modifications (and even if I did, they are 3 years out of 
date). Based on my experience, you may well be able to get something 
running in about a week if you had the time and sufficient knowledge of 
the MPW compilers and makefile system.

> And the chance of anyone picking up MPW-python nowadays, with MPW as 
> good as dead, is minimal...

My principal interest at the time was because I didn't have access to 
CodeWarrior and MPW was freely available.  For those not on OS X, this 
could still be a compelling argument.

Regards,
Corran