Mailman 3 May 2004 - Pythonmac-SIG

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

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(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

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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)

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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)

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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

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ANN: PyObjC 1.1
by Ronald Oussoren May 31, 2004

May 31, 2004

PyObjC 1.1 is now available for download at http://pyobjc.sourceforge.net/ PyObjC is a bridge between Python and Objective-C. It allows full featured Cocoa applications to be written in pure Python. It is also easy to use other frameworks containing Objective-C class libraries from Python and to mix in Objective-C, C and C++ source. Python is a highly dynamic programming language with a shallow learning curve. It combines remarkable power with very clear syntax. The installer package includes a number of Xcode and Project Builder templates for easily creating new Cocoa-Python projects, as well as support for syntax-coloring Python files. PyObjC also supports full introspection of Objective-C classes and direct invocation of Objective-C APIs from the interactive interpreter. PyObjC requires MacOS X 10.2 or later. PyObjC works both with the Apple provided Python installation in MacOS X 10.2 (and later) and with MacPython 2.3. Users of MacPython 2.3 can install PyObjC though the PackageManager application. The major improvement of PyObjC 1.1 is support for Key-Value Observing. It is now possible to write programs that use Cocoa Bindings. There are also numerous new examples. PyObjC is released with an open source license.

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Questions on doing some OS X-specific stuff: Adding file/folder icons from Python?
by Kenneth McDonald May 29, 2004

May 29, 2004

As a 'fun' project to start learning about calling OS X functionality from Python, I thought it'd be neat to write a little app that would go through my photo album (just a whole bunch of dirs with related pictures in each, not an iPhoto album) and 1) Add a permanent thumbnail to each image. 2) Put a custom folder icon on each folder, consisting of a thumbnail of the first image in the folder. (Digital cameras are great, but man, I'm sorta astounded at the number of pictures I've taken...) I can use PIL (I assume) to do the image-related stuff, but what's the best way to attack the assigning-icons-to-files/folders stuff? PyObjC? I seem to remember reading that Python can communicate with Applescript, would that be a better route? At the moment, I know nothing about accessing OS X from Python, so I'm really just looking for a good way to start learning. All I want to do with this first thing is to learn how to make a few OS X calls. Thanks, Ken McDonald

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how to determine Mac OS X version
by brad.allen＠omsdal.com May 29, 2004

May 29, 2004

I tried platform.mac_ver(), but this seems to be broken. Google turns up various bug reports on this function. I can use the shell command system_profiler on 10.3 but it's too slow on 10.2. We still have lots of machines running 10.2, and it will be several months before they can all be upgraded. sysctl doesn't have a variable for this, only for the Darwin version. Does anybody know a way to do this using Python or calling an outside shell command? I'd like something that will work for both 10.2 and 10.3 without having to install additional Python modules. Thanks!

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argvemulator.ArgvCollector
by Daniel Greenblatt May 28, 2004

May 28, 2004

I am using the argvemulator.ArgvCollector code to enable my application (using Python 2.3.2) to respond to Apple Events (works great!!). While the code in plat-mac/argvemulator.py will just collect all the events at program startup and tack them on to sys.argv , I've modified the code to call the 'dooneevent' function every so often while my program is running, to see if there are any new events on the AppleEvent queue (such as an 'odoc' or 'quit') . This all works wonderfully, except when it comes time to close the application. I consistently get a 'The application python2.3 has unexpectedly quit' error message (the report it generates is at the end of this message) . I've done some investigating, and it seems that this only happens if a call is made to Evt.WaitNextEvent (as happens from 'dooneevent'). My application uses Tkinter for the GUI. Are there any known problems involving the two (Tk and AppleEvent) event loops clashing ? Is there any cleanup function I'm forgetting to call? Any suggestions? Thanks, Dan > ------- > Crash log when quiting Chimera X11 1.1951 on Mac > > Host Name: mach.cgl.ucsf.edu > Date/Time: 2004-05-27 16:49:09 -0700 > OS Version: 10.3.4 (Build 7H63) > Report Version: 2 > > Command: python2.3 > Path: /Users/goddard/Desktop/Chimera 1951.app/Contents/Resources/bin/python2.3 > Version: 1.1951 (1.1951) > PID: 528 > Thread: 0 > > Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001) > Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x02d25be4 > > Thread 0 Crashed: > 0 GLEngine 0x02a0be10 0x29fe000 + 0xde10 > 1 _chimera.dylib 0x021b0bf0 0x2008000 + 0x1a8bf0 > 2 _chimera.dylib 0x021b0cf0 0x2008000 + 0x1a8cf0 > 3 _chimera.dylib 0x021f1228 0x2008000 + 0x1e9228 > 4 _chimera.dylib 0x021f12f8 0x2008000 + 0x1e92f8 > 5 dyld 0x8fe17fc4 _dyld_mod_term_funcs + 0x274 > 6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9002c7b8 exit + 0x58 > 7 python2.3 0x0000cac8 initsigs + 0 (pythonrun.c:1553) > 8 python2.3 0x0000df3c handle_system_exit + 0x150 (pythonrun.c:1017) > 9 python2.3 0x0000bbe4 PyErr_PrintEx + 0x40 (pythonrun.c:1029) > 10 python2.3 0x0000bb44 PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags + 0x268 > (pythonrun.c:841) > 11 python2.3 0x00006098 Py_Main + 0x8d0 (main.c:415) > 12 python2.3 0x00001aec _start + 0x17c (crt.c:267) > 13 python2.3 0x0000196c start + 0x30 > > ---------------------------- Daniel Greenblatt UCSF Computer Graphics Lab dan(a)cgl.ucsf.edu

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Scintilla?
by Pierre Thibault May 28, 2004

May 28, 2004

Is there people using Scintilla to code in Python on OS X? http://www.scintilla.org/ Scintilla is code editor with code completion for Python. It seems to be a great editor but I was unable to make a install on my machine. I would like to know if there is other people that have interest in Scintilla for OS X? Regards. --------------------- Pierre

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