[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 10, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Bill Janssen wrote:

>> Charles Hartman wrote:
>>> It seems to me (as *much* closer to a newbie than a developer) that
>>> simply recommending the download & install of Python 2.4.x not only
>>> wouldn't put a major obstacle in the way of beginners, but wouldn't
>>> seem to, either.
>>
>> Exactly. It's not like anyone but Linux users expects everything  
>> to be
>> pre-installed on their machine! You have to download something to try
>> out RealBasic, or whatever, as well.
>
> I don't know about that.  The Mac philosophy is something like, "It
> just works".  I hear that a lot from new Mac users around here.

Working properly and shipping with everything you could possibly need  
are two entirely different things.  When they download RealBasic it  
just works, but it didn't come with their Mac.  When they download  
the new Python 2.4 framework, it will be closer to just working --  
but it won't be fully Mac-like until there's the "movable python"  
inspired version available that does not have a required installation  
procedure.

The Python 2.3 build that ships with 10.3 and 10.4 definitely does  
not "just work" unless you're looking to do purely UNIX based things  
and you don't need to use distutils (e.g. by default scripts go to / 
System/.../nowhere/bin which requires root to install to and doesn't  
live on the PATH).  The current Python 2.4.x releases aren't a hell  
of a lot better at "just working", but the Python 2.4 builds we  
*will* be shipping do a much better job approximating that ideology  
(PATH hack, better documentation, fixes to distutils and the  
installation layout, etc.).

Personally I don't find Linux to "just work" at all as a developer.   
If I need a package outside of their package management system I have  
to go f*!(ing crazy figuring out which *-dev packages i need to  
install in order to get it to configure and make install correctly.   
I often need "bleeding edge" software such as the latest Python and  
PostgreSQL release.  Maybe I just hate Debian, this probably isn't an  
issue with all (most?) Linux distributions.

*BSD and Mac OS X don't have this problem because they ship packages  
with all the headers and such installed.  Much easier to get what I  
need done.

-bob