Python 3 and my Mac (Leopard)

[Dan]

Wanted to learn python, got Mark Summerfield's new book "Programming in
Python 3". Having a hard time getting python 3 and IDLE working on my
Mac with Leopard. The mac "resources" on the python.org site seem a
bit out of date, and don't really mention python 3. Are there any
resources out there? Is the python community just not interested in
Macs? I've tried googling and the usual search strategies. Any help
would be appreciated.

DAN

 

[Mark]

Wanted to learn python, got Mark Summerfield's new book "Programming in Python 3". Having a hard time getting python 3 and IDLE working on my Mac with Leopard. The mac "resources" on the python.org site seem a bit out of date, and don't really mention python 3. Are there any resources out there? Is the python community just not interested in Macs? I've tried googling and the usual search strategies. Any help would be appreciated.

DAN

I used the following link when installing Python 3 on my Mac running
Leopard, it worked like a charm:

http://farmdev.com/thoughts/66/python-3-0-on-mac-os-x-alongside-2-6-2-5-etc-/

These instructions are based around installing Python 3 alongside your
existing install, which is what I was looking for.

YMMV, especially concerning IDLE, I haven't used it with 3.0 as of yet.

-Mark

 

[Martin v. Löwis]

Is the python community just not interested in Macs?

This is fairly close to the truth. The Mac port is currently
mostly unmaintained, due to the past contributors having moved
on or being occupied by other matters (such as Real Life).

I would phrase it vice versa, though: the Mac community is not
much interested in Python. Of course, Apple has a steady interest
in Python, but that so far focuses on 2.x, is bound to Apple's
product cycles, and did not went as far yet as assigning an
Apple engineer to contribute to the Python core on a regular
basis. To contribute in this area, you do need to deep
understanding of OSX, so many Mac users are probably not
qualified - and neither are most of the Python core contributors.

Regards,
Martin

 

[scott]

Wanted to learn python, got Mark Summerfield's new book "Programming in
Python 3". Having a hard time getting python 3 and IDLE working on my
Mac with Leopard. The mac "resources" on the python.org site seem a bit
out of date, and don't really mention python 3. Are there any resources
out there? Is the python community just not interested in Macs? I've
tried googling and the usual search strategies. Any help would be
appreciated.

DAN

Activestate has a Python 3.0 distribution for 8 or 9 platforms including
Mac OS X:
http://www.activestate.com/Products/activepython/python3.mhtml
IDLE works well here on Leopard (calltips etc) and they have bundled
documentation in Apple help format.

Note:
I installed ActiveTcl prior to installing Python 3.0:
http://www.activestate.com/Products/activetcl/index.mhtml
I'm not sure if this was necessary for proper IDLE function or not. Both
ActivePython 3.0 and ActiveTcl installs were painless.

 

[Kevin Walzer]

Wanted to learn python, got Mark Summerfield's new book "Programming in
Python 3". Having a hard time getting python 3 and IDLE working on my
Mac with Leopard. The mac "resources" on the python.org site seem a bit
out of date, and don't really mention python 3. Are there any resources
out there? Is the python community just not interested in Macs? I've
tried googling and the usual search strategies. Any help would be
appreciated.

DAN

There's a mailing list devoted to Python on the Mac:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig

It is a pretty good resource, better than the Python wiki, more up to date.