The future (was: [Pythonmac-SIG] FAQ item)

[Jack Jansen]

On dinsdag, jul 29, 2003, at 22:55 Europe/Amsterdam, Ronald Oussoren 
wrote:

>
> On Tuesday, 29 July, 2003, at 22:08, Jack Jansen wrote:
>
>>
>> On dinsdag, jul 29, 2003, at 21:29 Europe/Amsterdam, Bob Ippolito 
>> wrote:
>>> What about the bootstrap problem (Package Manager vs. PyObjC)?
>>>
>>> You planning to make PyObjC one of MacPython 2.4's "batteries" ?
>>
> Nah, PyObjC is planning a hostile takeover of MacPython :-) :-)

Actually, that is indeed what I'm planning. I'm on both developer 
teams, why
should I care what it's called:-)

>> So this means 2.4 would simply become a point in time at which we 
>> incorporate
>> all the new tools and functionality into a single installer, 
>> deprecate the old
>> functionality and kill the old tools.
>
> BTW. You didn't answer Bob's question ;-). I've no strong opionions on 
> that issue yet, I'm happy enough with being a seperate project for 
> now. Better integration with the rest of MacPython would be nice 
> though, being able to do everything (Cocoa, Carbon, OSA, CGI scripts, 
> ...) in Python is a major selling point for Python on the Mac.

I did now:-)
I think the current split between the projects served us well, and will 
probably serve
us well for some time to come. When things have stabilized more I think 
there's something
to be said for integration, because it will make support and help 
easier.

Moreover, I think that to the end user we should provide a unified face 
as soon as
possible.

>> I'm rather happy with the engine part as it is, there's some 
>> repackaging to be
>> done (CoreFoundation and QuickTime should move out of Carbon, all 
>> three
>> should be generated from OSX-native headers in stead of old Universal 
>> Headers,
>> maybe the submodules of Carbon should become transparent, that sort 
>> of things),
>> but I'm pretty delighted with the current state of things.
>
> What about wrapping more of CoreFoundation, such as CFRunLoop? 
> Installing an upgraded version of the Carbon wrappers might be an 
> "interesting" experience :-)

You're absolutely right: CoreFoundation still needs work, I forgot 
about all the missing
bits, and about the CF types not being new-style objects yet. And this 
is something
we cannot really fix until 2.4, because the core contains references to 
"Carbon.CF" to
allow third-party modules (such as PyObjC) to wrap CF objects. Bummer:-(
--
- Jack Jansen        <Jack.Jansen at oratrix.com>        
http://www.cwi.nl/~jack -
- If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman -