-devel ports

[Freek Dijkstra]

[resent, I used the wrong sender address]

Hi Ryan,

Your ramblings are *much* appreciated. For one thing, it did took my
frustration away.

I had been writing the following e-mail, but some serious timing
consuming got in the way (I just became dad). I was planning to use
wxPython for some hobby projects, but those are now also on hold for a
while.

I fully agree that in this particular case, it is very odd that a stable
release of wxWidgets 2.9 is out since September, while there is no
release of wxPython that works for that version. I did ask on the
wxPython list, but got no response yet.

So it is obvious that there is no stable 64-bit wxPython. It seems to me
that there are three options here:

* keep the stable versions of wxWidgets and wxPython at 2.8,
  so that Leopard (10.5) users can enjoy both, and Snow Leopard users
  can't use wxPython.
* update the stable version of wxWidgets to 2.9, meaning that there
  can not be a stable wxPython (only a SVN-based wxPython).
* retain wxWidgets and wxPython at 2.8, and make a wxWidgets-devel
  for 2.9 and a wxPython-devel for the wxPython SVN version.

I presume that the last solution is the best, even though that is
slightly confusing (at least to me: to me wxWidgets 2.9 *is* stable as
it is released).

As an upgrade path to Snow Leopard users, I wonder if it is possible to
change the wxPython to display a warning saying it will not work, with a
note to use wxPython-devel.

For this to work, the existing wxPython ports need to be tested. As
Jyrki said, the change from carbon to cocoa might in fact be just as big
a change!

I planned to submit a portfile for a wxPython-devel above (I did compile
wxPython with cocoa using a subversion revision), but a quick test did
still indicate not all was 64-bit.

I was not able to check if that is caused by wxWidget, wxPython, or some
old hand-installed version -- it is at least clear that you guys are
indeed much more experienced in creating portfile than I am (thanks!)


Regards,
Freek