[Python-Dev] OS X Installer for 3.0.1 and supported versions (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Sat Feb 14 12:54:53 CET 2009

Ned Deily writes:

I see three plausible options:

  1. Release an installer built for 10.5 and higher. pros: delivers 32-support and 64-support; cons: prematurely disenfranchises 10.4 users

+0 This would bother me; I have a couple of older Macs that run 10.4. But it's acceptable (I can always use MacPorts or build from source). I would suppose most folks who are running 10.4 even today are "cranks like me, baby, we were born to fuss!" Ahem, anyway, I suspect people who care that much about stability are generally old-school types who are willing to roll their own to some extent.

  1. Release an installer built for 10.4 and higher. pros: one size fits all cons: no 64-bit support, known bugs in 10.4 wrt locale support, etc

-1 I think if you're going to have a break, make it a big one. By the time people who use installers are using Python 3.0 a lot, most of them will be on 10.6.

  1. Release two installers, one each for 10.4+ and 10.5+. pros: supports current and future systems; delivers 64-support to 10.5+ users; could choose to drop 10.4 installers anytime after 10.6 releases; cons: some extra work to build/release (but not much and not often);

+1

work on futures. And this same discussion and decision needs to be made going forward for 2.7 and 2.6.x (I think the change should be made for 2.6.2).

Generally my inclination is the same here, but the distinction between options 2 and 3 is a little less extreme.

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