[Pythonmac-SIG] Macpython installation

[Christopher Barker]

Joe,

Your messages are going only to me. That may be intentional, but if you 
want them to go to the list, you need to "reply all".


Joe Strout wrote:
> Ah, but I didn't actually install MacPython; I just opened up a terminal 
> window and typed "Python" and said "ooh, how nice, it's pre-installed!"
> 
> What else am I missing because of this procedure?  What's the difference 
> between "MacPython" and "Python which comes pre-installed on a Mac"?

MacPython is simply the python build that you can get from python.org.


With OS-X 10.5, Apple included Python2.5.1, which was the latest at the 
time of the release. However, historically, they have never upgraded 
python between OS-X releases, which has been the case so for -- the most 
recent 2.5 is not 2.5.2, and python2.6 is out now.

There are reasons to use Apple's Python and other reasons to use the 
python.org build. In short:

If you want to use py2app and deploy to other versions of OS-X, then use 
the python.org build.

If you want to easily install binaries that others build, there are more 
for the python.org build.

If you upgrade packages that Apple provides, things may not work right, 
either for your code or Apple's.

If you want IDLE, (and TK? ) then apparently you need the python.org 
version.

So -- unless the download and install is onerous, or if you need the 
couple things Apple provides that are not open-source (I don't remember 
what they are -- googling should help), then I'd use the Python.org version

-Chris



-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

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