Transition From "macpython" To Macports Python3 A Good Idea For Ein & Scipy?

I started off learning Python on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) with a python.org Python dmg. I think I've seen this called 'MacPython' on SO, but I'm also thinking that this MacPython (

Solution 1:

After trying with MacPorts and pip3 for many days and ultimately being unable to get a functional IPython notebook/qtconsole going with matplotlib and numpy and sympy and all that wonderful stuff, I gave up and switched to homebrew which ultimately worked for me, but I had to do a regular install from source for several of the bigger packages. Although homebrew would install these packages, it seemed to be doing so strictly for Python 2.7 and never for Python3; I tried several options in homebrew to fix this, but finally gave up and just installed from source for those difficult packages like Qt.

So I guess my experience was that MacPorts with pip3 was not a good idea for my particular goal whereas homebrew with pip3 was better, but still incomplete for Scipy packages with Python3. (Although perhaps if I had tried installing from source to supplement MacPorts the way I did with homebrew then MacPorts would have sufficed also.)

Looking back on the experience, I think there is a great need for more detailed and comprehensive documentation for new users on how to start from scratch and build these capabilities because I tried many different strategies and it was ultimately only through trial and error and lots of different bits and pieces of advice from all over the web that I finally got some of it going. I still don't have EIN going, but I think that's going to require tools strictly from the emacs world to get that going. EIN documentation strongly encourages use of an emacs package manager called el-get (or MELPA), and I found both to be buggy, so all I have thus far is IPython notebook using a browser which is still wonderful.

EDIT

Oh, one other very important thing: I stopped trying with Python 3.3.0 and moved back to Python 3.2.3 as numpy 1.6.2 doesn't support Python 3.3.0 and although this has apparently been fixed in numpy 1.7.x, there are currently no plans to release a numpy 1.6.3.