[Pythonmac-SIG] 64-bit MacPython?

[Bob Ippolito]

On 3/7/07, has <hengist.podd at virgin.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just wondering what the status of 64-bit support for MacPython is? I
> assume it's currently stuck at 32-bit due to all the older Mac-
> specific extensions; is there any sort of a plan/timescale for making
> it 64-bit clean?
>
> (I ask because I know py-appscript definitely isn't 64-bit compatible
> at the moment, and am trying to determine if I'll need to address
> this before Leopard ships or if can afford to leave it till later.)
>

Until Leopard is released, there's not much that can be done publicly.
None of the Mac-specific APIs will work in 64-bit prior to Leopard. I
would say that you can leave it until later, I doubt anyone is going
to be using a 64-bit MacPython any time soon (on the scale of at least
months after Leopard is public).

On top of that, I'm pretty sure that 10.4 has 64-bit bugs, at least on
PPC. A while ago I attempted to build a unix-only PPC64 Python, but
was unable to produce something that would run at all. This is
unlikely to be Python's fault because it works on other PPC64
platforms. The newer Xcode builds may have resolved this issue, but
there isn't much reason to care until Leopard is released.

-bob