I'm new to Mac (as of yesterday), and I have Snow Leopard. I've just easy_install virtualenv, and it doesn't work. I read a couple other SO questions about the same exception I had, and it seems that I need XCode installed. Before I go down a rabbit hole, installing a 3.5Gb Apple-specific code library for something Python related, and who knows what else at this point, I figured I'd stop by here and find out what's typical for Django developers with Macs.
What tools / libraries that are Python/Django specific, but non-project specific do you commonly use?
Is XCode really necessary to use virtualenv (and potentially other things, or is this just one way to solve my issue?
Are there other Mac issues that you've run into with basic Django development?
Do you have any other tips for a veteran Django dev who is an absolute Mac noob?
You will need XCode, yes. You'll need it for any libraries that need compiling, apart from anything else.
Please don't install MacPorts, though, as recommended by titaniumdecoy. It tries to install its own versions of everything, which is unnecessarily confusing, and takes you out of the usual Mac development stack. A much better package installation tool is homebrew, which uses the built-in tools to install software via a series of recipes. It's excellent.
I started use Mac a couple days ago and I have same problem. You need XCode, yes!
Packgers manager, like apt-get, you can try HomeBrew.
To develop in django, I use TextMate, with some bundles to django.
To develop in python I use pip, virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper, this is awesome.
As an iOS developer I can't comment on the specifics of Django development, but the following should help get you started.
Install macports immediately. You can install virtually any unix tool you can think of with a single command, including virtualenv. (Update: Use HomeBrew instead as suggested in other answers: see comments for why.)
You need to install Xcode to get the Mac OS X developer toolchain (gcc, etc.) unless you prefer to install everything yourself.
If you use Eclipse, the Pydev plug-in is one way to go. TextMate is probably the most popular text editor on the mac. The Python Wiki has a comprehensive rundown of your options.
Related
My friends usually ask me which Python IDE is easier to use, and I don't have an answer for them, because depending on their platform, package management could be a headache. Today I tried looking for a Python IDE with some kind of integrated package management system (e.g. PIP) that asks user if they like the IDE search online repositories for the missing package, and just install it--like the way their favorite TeX editor does.
So, do you know if such an IDE exists? If not, do you have any idea why?
Well, if you deal with Django development, I think you should definitely check out sourceLair which offers integration with pip. You just right click on your requirements.txt file, select install dependencies and you're done.
Currently, you cannot search for pip packages but I suppose this could be a future feature.
I think it mostly has to do with python packaging hate. Binary package management is very important to Windows users (of which Python has many, because they don't treat Windows as a second class platform), and building many C extensions with distutils on Windows often just doesn't work (try 'pip install numpy' on Windows, for instance). The state of "packaging" in python is confusing in general; I would say that's the primary reason nobody (that I know of) has gone thru the effort of integrating the existing tools into their IDEs.
As an aside, if you want something free and are familiar with eclipse, I recommend pydev.
I am trying to begin a new python GUI application and I have decided to use wxPython as GUI because I want a multi-platform one.
The problem is that I want to use virtualenv ( with virtualenvwrapper ) to isolate the environment and be able to reproduce it in other machines where I will work, but i cannot install wxPython.
I have it installed in my ubuntu machine via apt-get but that is not enough
I have searched the web for a solution and i have found ...
This page http://batok.github.com/virtualenvwxp/ where it is explained a way to hack the virtualenv environment to use the local installation of wxPython. Not the best solution, but it would be a good workaround. The problem is that it is explained for Mac, and I couldnt make it work in my ubuntu.
Also found this page Installing wxPython in virtualenv under Linux where someone ask something similar. I have tried to build wxPython that way with no success.
Any help would be appreciated.
In the end, I have choose wxPython beacuse it is multiplatform and i can use it without license problems, but as i have not started yet i can change my mind if there is another easier to install framework.
Thanks In advance
20110925: Sorry for the delay and thanks for the answers.
I just have tried to install wxpython using buildout and the links given here, but i still have the same problem. It seems as if I need libgtk2.0-dev package to be able to compile wxpython...
So there is any way to install this package locally to the buildout environment?
Thanks again.
At the end I could not resolve this problem.
I want to create a reproducible python environment with all the requirements inside using buildout and/or virtualenv so I could work in any linux system with just virtualenv, python and a C++ compiler installed.
It seems that the only way to do this is to use buildout cmmi recipes to download and build wxpython and ALL its dependencies. This is a really painful way, and I have no time now.
I have decided to use a workaround: I am going to work on my ubuntu laptop most of the time, so I have installed wxpython from the repositories and use a wx.pth file to make it available to the virtual environment.
This is not a good solution, but seems the best till now ... so if someone knows any better solution please let me know.
When my python project is more mature, I will turn again to this problem and I will probably try the hard way ...
Thanks for all your answers and comments.
The solution I ended up using was to install python to my main system:
Then make a symbolic link from the wx in my system python to my virtual environment:
ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/wxversion.py <virtual_env_path>/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wxversion.py
Where is the path in my case to a virtual environment named "fibersim" for example is:
/home/adam/anaconda/envs/fibersim
Then import wx worked
Got this from: http://qopml.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/README.txt
Buildout allows your to install different parts whose recipe code determines how that part is built. There are cmmi recipes for building stuff with Configure/Make/Make-Install (CMMI). You can use this to build wxPython locally to the buildout and then create a python interpreter that has that build of wxPython and your own eggs in it's path.
See this blog post and this answer for details.
Keep in mind that zc.recipe.egg will also install any setuptools/distribute console_scripts in the buildout's bin directory as well. See also mr.developer for automatically checking out multiple packages from VCS and working on them in the same buildout.
I've written an app in python that depends on wxPython and some other python libraries. I know about pyexe for making python scripts executable on Windows, but what would be the easiest way to share this with my Mac using friends who wouldn't know how to install the required dependencies? One option would be to bundle my dependencies in the same package, but that seems kind of clunky. How do people usually deploy such apps? For once I miss Java...
You could check out py2app, which is similar to py2exe
How do people usually deploy such apps?
2 choices.
With instructions.
All bundled up.
You write simple instructions like this. Folks can follow these pretty reliably, unless they don't have enough privileges. Sometimes they need to sudo in linux environments.
Download easy_install (or pip)
easy_install this, easy_install that (or pip this, pip that)
easy_install whatever package you wrote.
It works really well. If you download some Python packages you'll see this in action.
Sphinx requires docutils. Django requires docutils and PIL. It works out really well to simply document the dependencies. Other folks seem to do it without serious problems. Follow their lead.
Bundling things up means you have to
(a) provide the entire original distribution (as required by most open source licenses)
(b) provide a compatible open source license with the licenses of the things you bundled. This can be easy if you depend on things that all of the same license. Otherwise, you basically can't redistribute them and have to resort to installation instructions.
I'm a .NET developer who knows very little about Python, but want to give it a test drive for a small project I'm working on.
What tools and packages should I install on my machine? I'm looking for a common, somewhat comprehensive, development environment.
I'll likely run Ubuntu 9.10, but I'm flexible. If Windows is a better option, that's fine too.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not looking for the bare minimum to get a Python program to run. I wouldn't expect a newbie .NET dev to use notepad and a compiler. I'd recommend Visual Studio, NUnit, SQL Server, etc.
Your system already has Python on it. Use the text editor or IDE of your choice; I like vim.
I can't tell you what third-party modules you need without knowing what kind of development you will be doing. Use apt as much as you can to get the libraries.
To speak to your edit:
This isn't minimalistic, like handing a .NET newbie notepad and a compiler: a decent text editor and the stdlib are all you really need to start out. You will likely need third-party libraries to develop whatever kind of applications you are writing, but I cannot think of any third-party modules all Python programmers will really need or want.
Unlke the .NET/Windows programming world, there is no one set of dev tools that stands above all others. Different people use different editors a whole lot. In Python, a module namespace is fully within a single file and project organization is based on the filesystem, so people do not lean on their IDEs as hard. Different projects use different version control software, which has been booming with new faces recently. Most of these are better than TFS and all are 1000 times better than SourceSafe.
When I want an interactive session, I use the vanilla Python interpreter. Various more fancy interpreters exist: bpython, ipython, IDLE. bpython is the least fancy of these and is supposed to be good about not doing weird stuff. ipython and IDLE can lead to strange bugs where code that works in them doens't work in normal Python and vice-versa; I've seen this first hand with IDLE.
For some of the tools you asked about and some others
In .NET you would use NUnit. In Python, use the stdlib unittest module. There are various third-party extensions and test runners, but unittest should suit you okay.
If you really want to look into something beyond this, get unittest2, a backport of the 2.7 version of unittest. It has incorporated all the best things from the third-party tools and is really neat.
In .NET you would use SQL Server. In Python, you may use PostgreSQL, MySQL, sqlite, or some other database. Python specifies a unified API for databases and porting from one to another typically goes pretty smoothly. sqlite is in the stdlib.
There are various Object Relational Models to make using databases more abstracted. SQLAlchemy is the most notable of these.
If you are doing network programming, get Twisted.
If you are doing numerical math, get numpy and scipy.
If you are doing web development, choose a framework. There are about 200000: Pylons, zope, Django, CherryPy, werkzeug...I won't bother starting an argument by recommending one. Most of these will happily work with various servers with a quick setting.
If you want to do GUI development, there are quite a few Python bindings. The stdlib ships with Tk bindings I would not bother with. There are wx bindings (wxpython), GTK+ bindings (pygtk), and two sets of Qt bindings. If you want to do native Windows GUI development, get IronPython and do it in .NET. There are win32 bindings, but they'll make you want to pull your hair out trying to use them directly.
In order to reduce the chance of effecting/hosing the system install of python, I typically install virtualenv on the ubuntu python install. I then create a virtualenv in my home directory so that subsequent packages I install via pip or easy_install do not effect the system installation. And I add the bin from that virtualenv to my path via .bashrc
$ sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv
$ virtualenv --no-site-packages ~/local
$ PATH=~/local/bin:$PATH #<----- add this to .bashrc to make it permanent
$ easy_install virtualenv #<--- so that project environments are based off your local environment rather than the system, probably not necessary
Install your favorite editor, I like emacs + rope, but editors are a personal preference and there are plenty of choices.
When I start a new project/idea I create a new virtual environment for that project, so that I don't effect dependencies anywhere else. Since I would hate for some of my projects to break due to an upgrade of a library both that project and the new one depends on.
~/projects $ virtualenv --no-site-packages my_new_project.env
~/projects/my_new_project.env $ source bin/activate
(my_new_project.env)~/projects/my_new_project.env $ easy_install paste ipython #whatever else I think I need
(my_new_project.env)~/projects/my_new_project.env $ emacs ./ & # start hacking
When creating a new package...in order to have something that will be easy_installable/pippable use paster create
(my_new_project.env)~/projects/my_new_project.env$ paster create new_package
(my_new_project.env)~/projects/my_new_project.env/new_package$ python setup.py develop new_package
That's the common stuff as far as I can think of it. Everything else would be editor/version control tool specific
Since I'm accustomed to Eclipse, I find Eclipse + PyDev convenient for Python. For quick computations, Idle is great.
I've used Python on Windows and on Ubuntu, and Linux is much cleaner.
If you launch a terminal and type python you'll get an interpreter, where you can start trying stuff.
Just in case you haven't seen it, check out the book Dive Into Python, is free on-line.
http://www.diveintopython.org/
Follow the examples in the book using the interpreter.
For storing your work you could use any editor; Vim or EMACS could be the most powerful, but also the most difficult to learn at first. If you want a more "traditional" IDE, you could try WingIDE.
http://www.wingware.com/
After you start to get more comfortable with python you should try an enhanced interpreter; try ipython.
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/
When you start to develop a more serious project you'll need to get additional modules. Here you have two options; 1) Use your distribution tools to install additional modules; or 2) Download the modules you need directly from their sites and install them manually. You'll be responsible to upgrade them of course.
You'll have to decide for yourself which way to go. Personally I prefer to download and install additional modules manually.
Python (duh), setuptools or pip, virtualenv, and an editor. I suggest geany, but that's just me. And of course, any other Python modules you'll need.
Getting to Python from .NET world
Jumping into the Linux world from a .NET / WIndows background can be a bit disconcerting (but I do encourage you to keep trying Linux)
But I would suggest to anyone coming from Windows, to stick with Windows for a little while. goto www.Activestate.com and download their Python package - it includes the full win32com extentions by Mark Hammond and it also includes a complete, fast IDE "pythonwin"
I have done real professional development with just this setup alone on a windows box - one 14MB .msi and off you go !
Now to use Python on the DLR (Dynamic common language runtime) you need to download IronPython. THis is a seperate interpreter, that was also originally written by Mark Hammond at Microsoft and is at ironpython.org.
With this you can run code like (from wikipedia) ::
import clr
clr.AddReference("System.Windows.Forms")
from System.Windows.Forms import MessageBox
MessageBox.Show("Hello World")
Now you can access any .NET code from python.
If you're just starting out with Python, I'd actually argue against bringing in the complexity of virtualenv (which I think can be pretty overwhelming), at least until you've got a firm grasp of Python basics (especially regarding library/dependency management).
If you're using Ubuntu and the Gnome desktop environment, gedit is the default (gui) text editor, and has great support for Python built in. So my recommendation is to start with the pre-installed Python and gedit (which is pretty extensible on its own).
You don't need much. Python comes with "Batteries Included."
Visual Studio == IDLE. You already have it. If you want more IDE-like environment, install Komodo Edit.
NUnit == unittest. You already have it in the standard library.
SQL Server == sqlite. You already have it in the standard library.
Stop wasting time getting everything ready. It's already there in the basic Python installation.
Get to work.
Linux, BTW, is primarily a development environment. It was designed and built by developers for developers. Windows is an end-user environment which has to be supplemented for development.
Linux was originally focused on developers. All the tools you need are either already there or are part of simple yum or RPM installs.
You would probably like to give NetBeans Python IDE a shot. You can choose to use either Windows/Linux.
Database: sqlite (inbuilt). You might want SQLAlchemy though.
GUI: tcl is inbuilt, but wxPython or pyQt are recommended.
IDE: I use idle (inbuilt) on windows, TextMate on Mac, but you might like PyDev. I've also heard good things about ulipad.
Numerics: numpy.
Fast inline code: lots of options. I like boost weave (part of scipy), but you could look into ctypes (to use dlls), Cython, etc.
Web server: too many options. Django (plus Apache) is the biggest.
Unit testing: inbuilt.
Pyparsing, just because.
BeautifulSoup (or another good HTML parser).
hg, git, or some other nice VC.
Trac, or another bug system.
Oh, and StackOverflow if you have any questions.
Pycharm Community is worth to try.
I bought a low-end MacBook about a month ago and am finally getting around to configuring it for Python. I've done most of my Python work in Windows up until now, and am finding the choices for OS X a little daunting. It looks like there are at least five options to use for Python development:
"Stock" Apple Python
MacPython
Fink
MacPorts
roll-your-own-from-source
I'm still primarily developing for 2.5, so the stock Python is fine from a functionality standpoint. What I want to know is: why should I choose one over the other?
Update:
To clarify, I am looking for a discussion of the various options, not links to the documentation. I've marked this as a Community Wiki question, as I don't feel there is a "correct" answer. Thanks to everyone who has already commented for their insight.
One advantage I see in using the "stock" Python that's included with Mac OS X is that it makes deployment to other Macs a piece of cake. I don't know what your deployment scenario is, but for me this is important. My code has to run on any number of Macs at work, and I try to minimize the amount of work it takes to run my code on all of those systems.
I would highly recommend using MacPorts with Porticus for managing your Python installation. It takes a while to build everything, but the advantage is that whatever you build yourself will be built against the same libraries, so you won't have to futz around with statically linked shared objects, etc. if you want your Python stuff to work with Apache, PostgreSQL, etc.
If you choose to go this way, remember to install the python_select port and use it to make your system use the Python installed from MacPorts.
As an added bonus, MacPorts has packages for most main-stream Python eggs, so if you should be able to have MacPorts keep you up-to-date with the latest versions of all that stuff :)
Here's some helpful info to get you started. http://www.python.org/download/mac/
Depends what you are using python for. If you are using MacOS funitionality and things like PyObjC you are probably best of with MacPython or the python provided by Apple.
I use Python on my Mac mostly for development of server side applications which later will run on FreeBSD & Linux boxes. For that I have used fink python for a few years and ever since MacPorts python. With mac ports it is simple to add required c modules (like database driver etc). It's also easy to keep two python Versions (2.5 & 2.6 in my case) around.
I used "compile your own" python to test pre-3.0 python but generally I find managing dependencies to c modules painfull if done by hand.
Thanks to easy_install installing pure python modules is fast and easy for all the options mentioned above.
I was never very much an IDE person. For development I use command line subversion installed by MacPorts, Textmate and occasionaly Expandrive do directly access files on servers. I personally are very dependent on Bicyclerepairman for Textmade to handle my refactoring needs.
Others seem to be very happy with Eclipse & Pydev.
How about EPD from Enthought? Yes, it's large but it is a framework build and includes things like wxPython, vtk, numpy, scipy, and ipython built-in.
I recommend using Python Virtual environments, especially if you use a Timecapsule because Timecapsule will back everything up, except modules you added to Python!
Based on the number of bugs and omissions people have been encountering in Leopard python (just here on SO!), I couldn't recommend that version. e.g., see:
Why do I get wrong results for hmac in Python but not Perl?
Problems on select module on Python 2.5
I would choose MacPorts.
It does not eliminate your existing python supplied by Apple since it installs by default in /opt/local/bin (plays nice with it) and plus it is easy to download and install additional python modules (even binary modules that you need to compile!). I use Porticus GUI to maintain my MacPorts installed list of packages, including python.
In my windows environment I use Eclipse and PyDev, which works quite well together, even if it's a bit sparse. Apparently the exact same environment is available for the Mac as well, so I suggest downloading Eclipse and using the internal update software function to update PyDev with the URL http://pydev.sourceforge.net/updates/. To look further into PyDev, look here.
Apple's supplied python is quite old – my tiger install has 2.3.5. This may not be a problem for you, but you would be missing out on a lot. Also, there is a risk that Apple will update it. I'm not sure if moving from 2.3.5 to (say) 2.4 would cause code to break, but I guess it's possible. This happened to perl people recently: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/18/1435227
Macpython is a framework build (as is Apple's, I believe). To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it's a prerequisite for some modules, in particular wxPython. If you get python from macports or fink, you will not be able to run wxPython (unless you run it through X11).
And guess what was forgotten by every answer here ... ActivePython.
No compilation required, even for third-party modules such as numpy, lxml, pyqt and thousands of others.
I recommend python (any python?) plus the ipython shell. My most recent experience with MacPython was MacPython 2.5, and I found IDLE frustrating to use as an editor. It's not very featureful, and its' very slow to scroll large quantities of output.