[Pythonmac-SIG] Apple installed vs. Manual

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 9, 2005, at 10:15, Troy Rollins wrote:

> The next inevitable MacPython newbie question is regarding Apple's
> Python vs. a manual installation. It seems that Apple's is not in the
> same path location it would be if it were installed manually, and also
> that it is now at least a dot revision behind.

It's in a different location because it's a system component that 
should be upgraded by the vendor not by the user.  It's five dot 
revisions behind, but for the most part this is a non-issue.

> I'm not really concerned about one or the other, however I have
> noticed the tools like PyOxide and some others act as though they are
> a bit lost on my drive (not being able to find files they need, which
> are there, etc.) This tends to make things look broken, when they
> probably actually aren't. Is there some Python Path variable that I
> have control over? If so, uhhh, recommendations on how that is done?
> (Amazon, hurry that shipment of knowledge please!!)

The particular installation of Python that your IDE chooses is more or 
less IDE specific.  From the Terminal, it checks your PATH variable to 
find an installation of Python.

> Also, if Package Manager is not recommended, what is? How do you keep
> track of, and maintain your installation and modules? Fink? How do you
> browse your available modules, fo instance to determine function calls
> and syntax?

I don't recommend Darwinports or Fink for Python modules unless you're 
developing X11 applications.  See yesterday's "Fink, Darwinports vs 
py2app" thread.

Browsing available modules is IDE specific.  pydoc is good for looking 
at a particular module, but if it's PyObjC you should be consulting 
Apple's Objective-C documentation.  There's a straightforward 
translation between Objective-C and Python in that case.

> Frankly, the language itself looks a lot simpler than maintaining the
> installation and keeping track of what you have to work with.  ;-)

Usually you don't use too much stuff, the standard library comes with 
most of the functionality you need.  In an extreme case, I might need 
four of five "third party" packages.

-bob