[gdal-dev] GDAL 1.5.0 Beta2 Released

[Christopher Barker]

William Kyngesburye wrote:
> You mean Tiger and Leopard, right?

no, you'd listed leopard twice, so I got confused, but I think I got it now.

> It's not only a split of Universal Python vs. Leopard Python, but also a 
> purely Tiger/Leopard issue. 

right. I think I got that.

> I went the route of building explicitly and  separately for each system version.
 > It's easier to compile that way,  and to install.

well, yes and no. If you are building a 10.4 (I get confused as to which 
cat is older than which -- at least Ubuntu puts their animals in 
alphabetical order!) compatible version, then a 10.5 one is just extra 
work -- which is fine if you are doing it!

> I'm not sure what the problem is with Leopard's Python, if any. 

Partly it depends on how you want to use it. For one, I often need to 
build py2app's bundles for re-distribution -- if I use the 10.4 
Universal Framework build, then I cover a lot of bases.

> There 
> was some debate about it on the python list, but I don't remember any 
> serious real issues (but then, a lot of the extensions that were 
> discussed aren't of interest to me). 

Well, these are the ones I know of:

  - no readline

  - weird mixture of 32/64 bit quad libs and 32bit libs (though I don't 
think that breaks anything)

  - They've got their own packages somewhere other than site-packages, 
so strange things happen when you try to add packages they already 
installed. You could also potentially break something of theres if you 
upgrade something.

> I trust Apple to stay with Python 
> 2.5 thru the life of the OS version and not break things with a future 
> 2.6 switch,

yes.

> and to fix current problems.

No. AFAIK, they have never updated ANYTHING in python within a version, 
even things that were definitively broken.

> It looks to me like their 
> python binaries are more than just something for the system to use (as 
> supposed by many python users), and meant for people to run complex 
> Python applications on.

Well, their intentions aside:
  - all the extra modules are a major moving target (numpy is old, 
wxPython is old, etc, etc, etc)
  - Python has no built-in versioning support for packages
  - Apple has never upgraded anything within an OS version
  - Even between versions, I can run stuff built for the 10.4 build of 
Python on 10.5 -- if I rely on the 10.5 version, it probably won't run 
on 10.6, when they will probably upgrade stuff.
  - It's a lot of work to support all this -- that's why the PythonMac 
community has generally tried (not very successfully!) to declare an 
"official" supported version -- that version is still the 10.4 Universal 
Framework Build of Python2.5.

> I guess I'll see what happens when I try the GRASS python GUI on Leopard...

yup.

Anyway, If you're going to do anything -- please support the 10.4 
python. Beyond that, anything else you do is gravy -- and believe me, I 
appreciate it all.

> Actually, the windows eggs DO need an external gdal. 

hmm, that's unfortunate -- again -- it makes me want a Linux style 
package manager!

 > Not to mention format plugins and MANY
> dependencies that would bloat the python binaries.

Oh well, I guess it's just too much to hope that you can keep something 
like this simple -- it does make your framework installers look pretty good!

I've had my say -- and you're doing the work, so do what you think is best.

Thanks again,

-Chris



-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R            (206) 526-6959   voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE   (206) 526-6329   fax
Seattle, WA  98115       (206) 526-6317   main reception

Chris.Barker at noaa.gov