[Pythonmac-SIG] newbie Mac switcher trying to set up django on Intel MacBook Pro Tiger

[Daniel Lord]

On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:48 AM, Jack Jansen wrote:
> I think this would be a very good idea, even if only from a
> "political" point of view.
> Even though I've been an open source developer since long before the
> word existed I find that I'm getting sick and tired of the reinvent-
> the-world attitude that is far too common in the open source  
> community.
> If I am new to Python on the Mac and I've played with Apple Python a
> little, but as soon as I want to install one little add-on module I
> have to first replace the whole existing Python with something new
> (and not directly Apple-endorsed) I might just drop out. And at the
> very least it's mightily inconvenient. Also note that the chances that
> the distutils fix or the 64-bit fix are likely to affect me are
> exactly zero (the "newcomer me" from this paragraph, not the "flesh
> and blood Jack" me:-).

There are many who can wax more eloquently than I, maybe even  
Stallman- or Raymond-esqe about cathedrals and bazaars, on the  
material differences in the drivers behind and goals of commercial and  
open source software projects, but Jack's points about the  
isolationist tendencies and the need for "native" Python support are  
well-stated and his suggestion should be given serious consideration.  
While this community has done very well with only tacit Apple support  
(though embedding PyObjC is a bit more than tacit), we would likely  
find more support by Apple if we expand our offering to cater to the  
left half and tail of the Python adoption normal distribution. This  
would have the effect of raising Apple's awareness of the importance  
of Python on the platform. For example: I should not have to tinker  
with path settings, or worse install another a complete other Python,   
to use Python in a scriptable high-end 3D graphics modeler and  
renderer where a perfectly good one is already installed. Better  
OpenOffice Python integration and native Appscript and Python OSA  
support are others. But this means providing a reasonably rich set of  
tools that is fully accessible from the stock Python installation for  
the neophytes and apprentices as much as journeymen. I am with you Jack.

Daniel Lord