On 22-jun-2006, at 12:15, Konrad Hinsen wrote: > On Jun 21, 2006, at 10:42, Ronald Oussoren wrote: > >> Python 2.5b1 was released today, get it while it's hot: >> >> <http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/> > > Thanks for providing the binaries! > > I installed them this morning and everything seems to work fine. > > However, 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.
You can't please them all :-(. I'll add a warning to the readme text in the installer. You can turn this feature of during installation, the profile-editing step is a seperate package that you can disable using the 'Customize' button. This feature was discussed on this list a while ago when several people requested that this feature be added to the installer. The reason for that is that a lot of new users aren't terminal wizards and will be very surprised when the install python 2.4 or 2.5, open Terminal to play around with it and then can't find it on the shells search path. > > For me, the command-line edition of MacPython has always lived in / > usr/local/bin, which I put on my PATH if I want MacPython to be > used. I also have Fink python that some applications require, so I > do need to play with $PATH to make everyone happy, and I don't > appreciate MacPython making my many-python life even more difficult. The current installers only install a number of symlinks in /usr/ local/bin, the real cannonical installation location is inside the python framework. The reason for this is twofold. First of all this keeps the python installation nicely in one location, reducing the risk of interaction with other python installations (e.g. someone building a classic unix installation of python in the default location), but more importantly because distutils will by default install new scripts into the bin directory inside the framework. This confuses the heck out of most users that install new python packages from source, even long-time Python users. By placing the framework on the path thing "just work". Now that I've defended myself it's time to move forward again ;-). Why do some applications require Fink python? Is that a convenience issue or does Fink's python do something that the framework install cannot do? Or to phrase it differently, what should change to make you drop Fink or Darwinports for python stuff? And I mean that *very* broadly, I'd like to make MacPython the obvious choice for anyone that works with python on the mac. Ronald _______________________________________________ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - Pythonmac-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
