[Pythonmac-SIG] ActiveState's OS X Python

[Bob Ippolito]

On Jun 7, 2005, at 5:23 PM, Trent Mick wrote:

> [Bob Ippolito wrote]
>
>> It'd probably be better off just moving it to /Library/Frameworks/
>> Backup/Python.framework or something, for at least these reasons:
>>
>> If a developer is going to naively embed ActivePython in their
>> application, they'll probably just add a copy files phase to their
>> Xcode project and bring in the whole framework, which if they had
>> installed MacPython it would mean they'd bring in two Pythons.
>>
>
> That is a good reason. Do you have any idea of if that is at all  
> common?
> I'll look into updating pydistro.py (and hence the ActivePython
> installer to do this).

I doubt it's very common, but it's possible.

>> /usr/local/bin/macpython will still be linking against ActivePython,
>> because that's where the Mach-O load command points.
>> % otool -L `which python`
>> /usr/local/bin/python:
>>         /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/Python
>> (compatibility version 2.4.0, current version 2.4.0)
>>
>
> Okay. This would require doing some binary patching of the MacPython
> binaries (and the ActivePython binaries in the opposite case: moving
> ActivePython aside). That is probably quite do-able: the ActivePython
> installer has to do this on some of the other Unix platforms.

Well, sure, but there are diminishing returns.  Why bother?  They / 
should/ be fully compatible anyway.  I can't think of a good reason  
why somebody would want both ActivePython and MacPython active and  
working at the same time, anyway.

One tool that would be nice is something that will migrate site- 
packages from one to the other when you're switching.

-bob