On 14-mrt-2006, at 16:30, Rodney Somerstein wrote: > Thanks for the answer, Bob, and thanks for the work on the Universal > build, Ronald. If someone could answer my other questions as well, I > would really appreciate it. > > As a beginner, what does having a working readline actually mean to > me?
Command-line history in the python shell. Using the array keys you can bring back previous statements and edit and reexecute them. This makes the python shell much more convenient. > If I'm not building command line apps do I need that for user > input? And why wouldn't ActiveState have one? Given that ActiveState > seems to put forth the effort to make a release of Python that is > compatible across multiple platforms, including a Universal Mac > build, why does the MacPython community maintain a separate framework > build? (No criticism intended here, I want to understand this) Our framework build predates ActivePython support for OSX. We (Jack, Bob, me and several others) are also the ones doing the actual OSX support such as creating support for framework builds, Apple specific extensions and support for univeral binaries. Note that I have never used ActivePython and therefore cannot comment on the quality of their work, or even on what they do or do not include. As one of the maintainers for the universal builds I obviously prefer out build :-) > Again, is there really any reason that I would want to use one > release over the other? Is it simply a matter of readline, whatever > that buys me (I'm obviously a beginner to Python even though I've > read a bit about it over the years) or is there some other major > reason? Such as, will I have problems creating redistributable app > bundles with ActiveState since Bob seems to be working mostly with > the MacPython build? How about other add-on libraries I might want to > use? Both should work in both builds. However, as you noted Bob seems to be using the MacPython build hence actual support for that will be better. Bob has provided binary installers for lots of extension packages in the past, and I'm sure simular installers will emerge for the new universal build in the near future (if he doesn't create new installers I will). > > If I go with the MacPython framework build, how likely is it to catch > up to the current release of Python? I notice that it has been 6 > months since the 2.4.2 release and it isn't easy for a new user to > find links to a "official" Mac build of this version. I do note that > Ronald has stated he will put out a 2.4.3 build when 2.4.3 is > release, but I can't even find links to 2.4.2 on python.org. Is this > likely to change? Yes, Bill Janssen has edit-rights on the python.org site and will update the link sometime in the future (Bill: now would be fine :-)) The mac world is a bit in-between maintainers at the moment, the official maintainer (Jack Jansen) is mostly absent (very busy with other work), and nobody has picked up the slack. Things seem to have improved a little recently, but we'll have to see how that works out. Ronald _______________________________________________ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - Pythonmac-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
