[Pythonmac-SIG] python 2.5b1

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 22-jun-2006, at 15:38, Russell Finn wrote:

> On 6/22/06, Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen at laposte.net> wrote:
>> I wasn't very pleased to see that the installation modifies
>> my ~/.profile to insert /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/ 
>> Versions/
>> Current/bin at the front of $PATH. I don't expect any software
>> installation to mess around with my ~/.profile, and certainly not
>> without telling me it did so.
>
> I guess this is one of the advantages of using tcsh instead of bash:
> my .profile (with three separate settings of $PATH for three different
> Python installations) is blissfully ignored...

You shouldn't have said that, this is a bug in the installer and now  
that you've told me this I'll fix it. (insert evil grin here).
>
> More seriously, it seems to me that an appropriately worded dialog box
> near the end of the installation might be preferable to automatically
> hacking people's .profiles.  Then people like Konrad who know what
> they're doing can override the behavior, while people who blindly
> click "OK" without reading the message -- well, they're the ones that
> probably need their profiles updated for them.  :-)

Apple's installer doesn't allow for custom user interaction from the  
installer, at least not without makeing it impossible to run the  
installer from the command-line (or through Remote Desktop). I will  
however add a note about this behaviour to the ReadMe message at the  
start of the installer, including instructions to turn this feature of.

>
> I understand the motivation in making this change -- it tries to
> forestall the large number of questions we used to get here along the
> lines of "I just installed the new version of Python but my scripts
> aren't seeing it" -- but its covert nature always troubled me.  Hardly
> anyone will think to click "Customize" and look in the package list to
> turn this behavior off (although maybe my publicizing that feature
> here will help).
>
> -- Russell Finn
>
> P.S.  I do appreciate the hard work the maintainers have put in, and
> it's a pleasant change to see the latest Mac OS X installers available
> on python.org.

It is cool that OSX is a first-class citizen again.