[Pythonmac-SIG] Python on Mac Book

[has]

Ronald Oussoren wrote:

>> Is there a good book out there on programming python on mac ?
>
> No. There are a number of good books on Python programming in  
> general and those should get you going on the Python side. For the  
> most part Python on the mac is just like Python on other unixy  
> platforms.

Also various online tutorials, if the OP's completely new to Python.  
Easy enough to find.


> I know of no books that deal with mac-specific issues (like  
> applescript and Cocoa) from the Python perspective, but that  
> shouldn't be a problem unless you want to use mac-specific  
> technologies. W.r.t. applescript: appscript is very useful and has  
> good documentation.

Yep, appscript is quite straightforward to use once you appreciate  
how it works. (It's basically a hybrid RPC+query-based system, not an  
object-oriented connected a-la COM or CORBA, and any syntax on top of  
that is just sugar to sweeten the taste.) The hard bit is dealing  
with the various bugs, quirks and inadequate documentation of the  
applications you want to script, but that's not something specific to  
appscript. Dealing with this tends to be a bit hand-to-mouth,  
involving a fair degree of intelligent guesswork, trial-and-error  
testing, studying existing scripts and generally looking and asking  
around for help. However, there's various folks here and in the  
AppleScript community who can provide advice on specific problems  
(and several mailing list and BBS archives you can search for past  
discussions) so don't be afraid to ask.


> W.r.t. Cocoa: PyObjC does not have extensive documentation, but it  
> should be easy enough learn just enough Objective-C to learn about  
> Cocoa from the myriad of Objective-C Cocoa books.

FWIW, this is how I did it: one copy of PyObjC (for obvious reasons),  
one copy of AppKiDo (for quickly looking up Cocoa API documentation),  
one copy of Hillegass (to grok the basic concepts behind Cocoa  
programming), one Google bookmark (for everything else), and just  
dived in and began writing code till it started to all make sense.  
The example code included with PyObjC is really handy for picking  
through and pulling apart to help understand the general principles  
and as a source of example solutions to various common design  
requirements. And again, there are plenty of folks here and in the  
wider Cocoa community (e.g. I also subscribe to Omni's MacOSX-dev and  
Apple's Cocoa-dev mailing lists) who you can ask for advice when you  
need it.

HTH

has
-- 
http://appscript.sourceforge.net
http://rb-appscript.rubyforge.org