[Numpy-discussion] Numeric3

[Chris Barker]

Travis Oliphant wrote:

> Perhaps it would be good to get a list of which platforms actually
> need binaries for people to look more favorably at SciPy.   I can see
> that OS X is on the top of that list, surely somebody could
> distribute a copy of a binary for that platform (I know of people who
> have it installed).

It is MUCH easier to get a complex package working on OS-X than to make
a binary of it. Not because it's hard to make a binary (it's very, very
easy, thanks to Py2App), but because, in general, open source software
ends up being dynamically linked against a bunch of libraries. Getting
those libs installed on your system is a lot easier than figuring out
how to get the package to statically link to them (or install them as
part of your package)

I know this because I spent a few days last week getting a binary of
matplotlib together.

If there is a small group of folks that would like to work on making a
binary SciPy for OS-X, I'd be glad to work with others to do it. I doubt
I'll do it myself, however.

By the way, does anyone know a way to get distutils to statically link a
given library? So far, I've done the trick of making sure it can only
find the *.a, and not a *.dylib, but this is kind of a pain, and feels
like a kludge.

Paul DuBois wrote:
> My experience with binary distributions has convinced me that it is a
> hopeless endeavor in the long run. I understand why people want them
> but until you've tried to provide them to the public and seen the
> number of things that go wrong ... Not to mention that it means you
> have to have someone build on all those systems and you don't have
> them all. And if the person is going to add their other extensions,
> compiled with a different compiler, blooie.

This is Much less of an issue with OS-X than many other systems. Apples 
keeps it pretty tightly controlled, If you build packages without 
linking in a bunch of fink/darwinports/portage stuff!

-Chris


-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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