[Python-Dev] Automatic installer builds (was Re: Fwd: Broken link to download (Mac OS X)) (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Thu Apr 15 04:51:39 CEST 2010

Bill Janssen writes:

Fink or MacPorts are often a practical necessity.

Fink is deadly, MacPorts much more benign, in my experience. Which is several years out-of-date, before I realized I didn't need either one of them, and before the UNIX community started adding configure patches to support OS X builds more widely. Perhaps they've improved.

FWIW, I use MacPorts heavily, and it works fine for the most recent release of Mac OS X which has been out for at least 6 months. Bug fixes for Snow Leopard in MacPorts are typically a matter of a handful of hours, but many port maintainers don't have full-time access to Leopard, and few will do more than pay lip service and help install a patch if you have problems with Tiger. IOW, the previous release always has occasional glitches, and the second previous release is a nightmare. MacPorts is fine if you don't mind occasionally messing with it and don't need to deal with Mac OS versions getting even slightly long in the tooth.

In any case, they shouldn't be needed on buildbots maintained by the PSF.

They should be avoided, as many users won't have them. MacPorts and presumably Fink have their own testing process, and the quality of /opt/local/lib varies quite a bit.

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