To Python 3 part 3: 3 Denied


OK, I’ve been testing Python 3 and while overall I like it I finally found as issue that was irresolvable. PyObjC doesn’t work with Python 3. According to the developers there are some big issues so it may be a while before Python 3 supports PyObjC.

Support for Python 3.x is on my todo list but is non-trivial to achieve. PyObjC contains a large amount of pretty low-level C code, getting the details w.r.t. to the changes in 3.0 right is not easy. I have looked into a Python 3.x port and this should be fairly easy, but it’s still a couple of days work. I’m not planning to work on that before the next release of PyObjC, that’s way too long overdue as it is.

Now that might not be a big deal, except occasionally I really need some aspects of Cocoa to call. For instance I’m working on a script that needs the screen size. Trivial to do with Cocoa and PyObjC but a pain if you’re using shell scripts.

I’m also interested in learning more Cocoa. (I’m fairly ignorant) While I’ll be doing most of that in Obj-C and suspect as I learn things I’ll be applying them to my Python scripts. Not being able to do so obviously is a big issue.

So the end result is that I think I’ll wait an other year for Python 3 to become a tad bit more mature.

Note: this post is part 3 of a 3 post series. (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)

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