[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Mac Guikits

[Roger Binns]

> I'd just like to point out an exception to your rule. 
> REALBasic was originally developed for the mac, 

REALBasic is not open source, nor does it have Python
bindings.

> This just goes to show that there IS money to be made
> catering to mac users.

And?  The original point was that people doing applications
are best served by picking where they'll get the most paying
customers for their initial effort.  Once they have done
that, supporting other platforms involves ensuring the
extra revenue is in line with the costs to move to that
platform.  (And "supporting" other platforms means that the
application works, looks and feels like a native application).

Market conditions, VC financing, publicity, competition,
risk/reward tradeoffs, company size etc all tweak what is
best done.

One of the things that Python does, exactly as you pointed out,
is significantly reduce the costs of supporting other platforms.
Unfortunately the various Python graphical toolkits that also
support Mac still have rough edges, and some don't support it
at all.

That leaves Mac Python developers with two choices.  You can
either use the native APIs which will give a better application
but make it harder to port to other platforms, or use one of the 
toolkits and help improve it.  That will take more effort, but 
will benefit the platform because it will reduce the time and 
monetary costs of other applications also moving to Mac.

Roger