🌐 Mailman 3 March 2004 - Pythonmac-SIG - python.org

Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Python for OSX programming beginner?
by Russell E Owen March 20, 2005

March 20, 2005

>Been lurking here for a while and quietly observing. > >I am looking for a programming language and preferably and IDE for a >young nephew wanting to dip his toes in the programming pool... >Is Python worth further investigating and how good are the IDEs? >Is there something along the lines of REALbasic VisualBasic >integrated interface/code style IDE available? >What are the specialities limits of the language? >Why learn Python rather than battle on and master C or more >particularly Objective C ? >Rather difficult to answer, but how different is the learning curve? > >Many thanks for any help. Hmmm...I suggest the following: Smalltalk: Squeak and VisualWorks NC are both free (the latter only for noncommercial use). Smalltalk is a lovely, simple really powerful language that includes: - powerful IDE and class browser with integrated debugger; smalltalk has the best development environment I've ever seen for a language because it includes live debugging, live changing of classes (want to fix a method? go ahead; the change propagates; fix it and continue on the fly) - really simple yet powerful language; one of the most elegant languges I've seen, though the syntax is a bit different than C and Python programmers are used to - very rich class library, including one of the nicest collection classes (lists, sets, etc.) available Between these two, squeak is smaller and more fun and includes a nifty GUI called Morphic; however it all runs in one big window (very non-Mac like). VisualWorks is more Mac-like (at least on a Mac) and more mature, but is much larger. Both are fully cross-platform (write once, run everywhere). One limitation to smalltalk is that it's not much good for simple scripting, hence simple text processing scripts and such. Python really shines there, so... Python. This is a really nice language and he'll be able to go far with it. However, based on what you said above, some of its limitations make me nervous: - there is no really well integrated GUI, unlike the suggestions above. You can do GUI programming, but you have to choose a 3rd party package and they are fully powerful, but the two main ones (Tkinter and wxPython) are somewhat clumsy and poorly documented. - hence there is no really first rate IDE (not to put down the IDEs that are there, but in comparison to smalltalk or RealBasic...) Note: python is built into MacOS X 10.2, but it's an outdated version missing some of the things that make the language sane (such as readlines support and a GUI package). Install the missing items or a better package (if you've been reading you've seen various options for that including at least one recent binary installer). I suggest learning those two (since their few weaknesses are complimentary), but you could also consider: Buy RealBasic. The knowledge is well worth the money! It's not a wonderful language, but not so bad either and if he already knows it, well...that's a huge leg up. Java. Not sure what the IDE situation is for MacOS X, but the language is reasonable (much saner than C++). The problem is that the need to declare the type of all objects makes it a clumsy and messy language compared to Python and Smalltalk. I suggest NOT using C++. The language is too arcane and messy. The object model is insanely complicated and the pitfalls fill volumes. Learn to program first, then learn C++ later if you really have to. -- Russell

3 3

(no subject)
by Keith Nemitz Dec. 6, 2004

Dec. 6, 2004

>> >> >> huh? I mean does everyone use[-3:] instead and 0 is taboo? I'm used >> to the Icon programming language where "food"[-3:0] returns --> ood > > "food"[-3:] is equivalent to "food"[-3:None] (that is, literally, how > it works out internally) > > "food"[-3:0] is just backwards :) If anything, it should give you > "oof", but that's too confusing. > > -bob > Thank you. I knew there had to be a reason. If you think about lists as ring buffers, however, then "food"[-3:0]-->"ood" makes plenty of sense and can be very useful. My case that started this whole thread had to do with iterating from negative to positive, returning larger substrings on each iteration. It broke with the zero index. So I had to special case it. sigh, I wonder if adding this 'concept' to python (indexing lists as ring buffers) would break any existing code... Heck while I'm at it, changing the language, might as well add nested comments, and (my personal favorite) record names, implemented like this: record <tuple of enums> tuple of enums ::= (<enum> [,enum]*) enum ::= <string>[= <int>] ...such that the keyword 'record' turns the strings into module and/or class scoped indexes. Isn't it fun to dream? Keith Nemitz

11 28

WebKit, SVG
by Dinu Gherman Oct. 4, 2004

Oct. 4, 2004

Hi, recently I played a bit with Konfabulator, some kind of a "widget framework" for OS X, which looks very nice at the beginning. But after a while it seemed to me that despite the very good idea, its implementation is kind of using the wrong technology. They try to make it very simple to define widgets by specifying them in XML and adding behaviour in Javascript code. This is done in some very strange way, though, like putting the Javascript code insinde XML comments, which is the recommended way of doing it! Well, I think SVG and Python would be the better combination, so I wonder if Apple's WebKit is any good in making use of Adobe's SVG renderer plug-in, somehow? Of course, then we'd still need some bridge to Python, but you need to start somewhere... Dinu PS: www.konfabulator.com -- Dinu C. Gherman ...................................................................... "The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children." (King Edward VIII)

7 9

Quicktime, versions, 3GPP
by Dinu Gherman Aug. 15, 2004

Aug. 15, 2004

Hi again, does anybody know if the Quicktime modules under Carbon do always support the currently installed/found version of Quicktime during compile time, or is it a more difficult story? I'm especially interested in Quicktime 6.3 and higher with their ability to save in 3GPP mode for mobile devices... Thanks, Dinu -- Dinu C. Gherman - http://python.net/~gherman ...................................................................... "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." (Alan Kay)

3 4

framework _only_ build fails on 10.1
by Pascal Oberndoerfer July 4, 2004

July 4, 2004

I doubt this is of great interest anymore but still: maybe I just missed something? I tried to build the framework _only_ on 10.1 yesterday. No frameworkinstallapps or frameworkinstallextras. During make I get this problem: cc -Wl,-F. -bundle -framework Python build/temp.darwin-5.5-Power_Macintosh-2.3/macosmodule.o -L/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib -L/usr/local/lib -o build/lib.darwin-5.5-Power_Macintosh-2.3/MacOS.so -framework Carbon /usr/bin/ld: Undefined symbols: _CGMainDisplayID This is related to macosmodule.c I guess. Obviously this leads to unexpected skips during make test: 3 skips unexpected on darwin: test_macostools test_aepack test_scriptpackages and make frameworkinstallframework fails too of course: ./python.exe ./Mac/scripts/cachersrc.py -v /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/plat-mac /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/Mac/Tools Traceback (most recent call last): File "./Mac/scripts/cachersrc.py", line 7, in ? import macresource File "/Users/pob/Desktop/Python-2.3.3/Lib/plat-mac/macresource.py", line 6, in ? import MacOS ImportError: No module named MacOS make[1]: *** [installmacsubtree] Fehler 1 make: *** [frameworkinstallmaclib] Fehler 2 These were the steps taken: - download waste-21b1.sit to Desktop - download Python-2.3.3.tgz to Desktop - unpack both to Desktop - rename 'WASTE 2.1b1 Distribution' to waste - open Terminal - cd to ~/Desktop/Python-2.3.3 - ln -s ../waste waste - ./configure --enable-framework - edit ~/Desktop/Python-2.3.3/Mac/OSX/make for 10.1/10.2 on lines 13-16 (PBXBUILD=pbxbuild) (Don't know if this is necessary when not installing extras/apps) - make - make test - make frameworkinstallframework Thanks, Pascal

3 2

Difference between pythonw and python?
by Jens Miltner April 6, 2004

April 6, 2004

What exactly (at the code level) is the difference between pythonw and python? The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to get Tkinter work with an application that links against Python.framework and uses python as it's scripting language (MacCvsX). I do have problems with Tk not being recognized as a valid symbol name in the python scripts (despite the fact that those scripts do have a "from Tkinter import *" statement and they do work when executed from a shell), so I thought this might be related to the pythonw vs. python problem... Anybody knows what the exact difference between the two is? Thanks, </jum>

6 20

associating file types and applications...
by Daniel Greenblatt April 3, 2004

April 3, 2004

An application we're distributing defines several of its own file types... Is it possible to use Python to programmatically establish the association btn. that file type and my application, either on a user-wide (ideally) or system-wide (less ideally) basis? I.e. so when they click on their file on their desktop, or click on a link to that file from their browser, it knows where to send the file.... I'm sure I have to write into some plist somewhere, but not quite sure which one, and the best way to do it..... Thanks, Dan Greenblatt ---------------------------- Daniel Greenblatt UCSF Computer Graphics Lab dan(a)cgl.ucsf.edu

7 10

possible OT: os.chdir on OSX
by Scott Frankel April 2, 2004

April 2, 2004

On OSX 10.3 How would one change working directories using a python script and have the parent process (the shell from which the script was launched) switch to that directory? i.e.: os.chdir("some_other_dir") print os.getcwd() this prints "some_other_dir", so I know the script's process made it there. But when the script exits, my shell is back to where I launched the script from. (In fact, it never left.) Thanks in advance! Scott

4 7

ANN: Preview of SystemConfiguration wrapper
by Bob Ippolito April 2, 2004

April 2, 2004

http://undefined.org/python/SystemConfiguration-0.1.tar.gz This is a source distribution, it requires PyObjC and Developer Tools. The wrapper itself is (entirely) an ObjC framework, but it includes everything necessary for Python wrapping. I haven't done any documentation, real tests, especially testing of the runloop integration.. but here it is if someone wants to play with it. The ObjC is a little sloppy (three classes in one file), and the setup.py is a lot sloppy (thanks to distutils being not easily extensible), but it works.. or at least it should. I'll be adding stuff from MoreSCF, probably tomorrow, and writing more tests/examples and possibly some documentation over the next couple days. -bob

2 5

path name issues
by C Smith April 1, 2004

April 1, 2004

I've noticed a wrinkle in Python operations regarding path names and some modules and am wondering how you all deal with the issue. EasyDialogs gives back path names with colons in them and functions in macpath think that paths have colons (and os.sep thinks the separator is a colon, too). What are people doing to handle this in scripts? I tend to hardcode in the volume name (macintosh hd) after changing all the '/'s to ':'. Is there a better way to get the volume name? (I'm nervous about using mac.getcwd because the directory could be changed to a different volume in a program, couldn't it?) I have really appreciated the transparent handling of line returns in scripts coming from different platforms. How big of an issue is it to try get the same treatment for path names? /c Putting http://wecanstopspam.org in your email helps it pass through overzealous spam filters.

2 2