#PYTHON FOR MAC OSX INSTALL#
#PYTHON FOR MAC OSX DOWNLOAD#

It's important that you read the file ' ReadMe.txt'. What do I need to know before installing? (The 10.6 notation means you need at least OS X Snow Leopard to run it.) When you double-click it, it will mount on your desktop as a volume. dmg file called ' python-3.4.1-macosx10.6.dmg' to your downloads folder.

The interesting part of the page will look something like this: It should auto-detect that you're on a Mac and offer you some options.

#PYTHON FOR MAC OSX DOWNLOAD#

Go to the Python website's download page. It's particularly easy to do because 1) There's an OS X installer package that does all the work and 2) You can still run both versions, so there's no penalty to installing 3.x.

#PYTHON FOR MAC OSX INSTALL#

Secondly, if you want to use a specific third party package or utility that doesn't yet have a released version that is compatible with Python 3, and porting that package is a non-trivial task, you may choose to use Python 2 in order to retain access to that package.Īlternatively, if you're a newbie to the language and/or your class instructor insists that you begin by learning 3.x, then you'll need to install it on your Mac. So when should you use version 2 and when should you use the latest release, 3.4? The site says:įirstly, if you're deploying to an environment you don't control, that may impose a specific version, rather than allowing you a free selection from the available versions.

Even OS X 10.10 Yosemite provides Python 2.7.x. There are large libraries for Python 2.x and many users still need to use it, so Python 2.7.x is installed in OS X by default. As a result, the 3.x version can't be depended on to run 2.x scripts. To do this, backwards compatibility had to be compromised. Why is Apple only providing Python 2.x?Īs the Python website says, ' Python 2.x is legacy, Python 3.x is the present and future of the language.' Briefly, in order to move forward technically as a language, the creator, Guido van Rossum, needed to make some significant internal changes. Here's a short and sweet Q&A session on what you need to know to download and install the latest version of Python (3.4.1).ġ. 'įor those who are learning Python on a Mac, it may be slightly frustrating that Apple doesn't provide the latest version, typically used when learning Python these days. Here's the new, updated article from Aug 10, 2017.

Python for mac osx