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Pentad

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 26, 2003
986
99
Indiana
I was thinking about trying out Python on the Mac and I wondered how well it is supported? I currently program in C, C++, C#, VB, Java, PHP, HTML, ASP, and a few other others. I like to expand the languages I know so I thought I would dabble in Python.

I'm looking to write a few applications so I would need a window framework and be able to draw some graphics.

In my research, it seems like Python is divided into two lines: 2.7 and the newer 3.4.x. It also appears that 2.7 is stuck at 32bit??

Does anyone have a recommendation for a window/graphics framework? I saw pygame and piglet being talked about on some Python forums. Thought it seemed like pygame is not being updated anymore??

I would like to use Python 3.4.x, a nice window/graphics framework, and prefer it to be 64bit.

Does anybody have some recommendations?

Thanks!
-P
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,560
6,059
I would recommend using 2.7. I've never come across a Python library which is 3.x only but I've come across several that are 2.x only.

As for how well it's supported, its a language that ships with OS X. Fire up Terminal and type in "python". Boom, you're using Python. So it's at least as well supported as any other language in OS X (I would argue C, C++, Obj-C, and Swift are all relatively poorly supported in OS X, given that you can't use any of them out of the box in OS X.)

For graphics, I used PyQT 2 years ago. More recently I've played with tkinter. But I've never done much with graphics in Python.
 

Pentad

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 26, 2003
986
99
Indiana
I would recommend using 2.7. I've never come across a Python library which is 3.x only but I've come across several that are 2.x only.

As for how well it's supported, its a language that ships with OS X. Fire up Terminal and type in "python". Boom, you're using Python. So it's at least as well supported as any other language in OS X (I would argue C, C++, Obj-C, and Swift are all relatively poorly supported in OS X, given that you can't use any of them out of the box in OS X.)

For graphics, I used PyQT 2 years ago. More recently I've played with tkinter. But I've never done much with graphics in Python.

Thanks!
 

blaster_boy

macrumors 6502
Jan 31, 2004
282
4
Belgium
Anaconda from continuum.io is free and fully 64-bit, and has a lot of 'batteries included' for your Python, including iPython and Spyder the editor, which I like better the more I use it.

It's a good starting point to start learning python from. Plus it's independent from your system Python.

Nowadays I hear and read a lot about Kivy, a graphics solution which is something that can run on multiple platforms.
 

Pentad

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 26, 2003
986
99
Indiana
Anaconda from continuum.io is free and fully 64-bit, and has a lot of 'batteries included' for your Python, including iPython and Spyder the editor, which I like better the more I use it.

It's a good starting point to start learning python from. Plus it's independent from your system Python.

Nowadays I hear and read a lot about Kivy, a graphics solution which is something that can run on multiple platforms.

Thanks for the info!
 
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