[Pyobjc-dev] PyObjC newbie questions

[Gary R. <gro...@tr...>]

Hello everyone,

I'm a PyObjC newbie hoping to get some info.

I have a couple decade's worth of programming experience plus solid
experience in Python development on Solaris.

I have no experience with Cocoa or Objective C.

I am interested in using PyObjC to create a small Cocoa application, mostly
because  I want to get it done quickly and don't want to have to master
Objective C, and in particular, don't want to deal with reference counting
etc. Also, I very much like Python's syntax and the libraries that come with
it.

It sounds like PyObjC could allow me to do what I want to do, but I have
some concerns. I am hoping that someone here can address them for me.

1) refcounts.html in the PyObjC docs files says "Other than in very special
situations you should never have to worry about reference counts. Those
special methods mostly seem to involve zombie objects that are no longer
reachable from normal code, but will perform some action before really dying
at the end of the current pass through the event loop."

OK, but does that mean I can do things in such a way that I KNOW that Python
is handling them? That is, is there a programming style I can use such that,
if I rigorously follow it, I will know I am not creating the kind of zombie
object mentioned above, and am not creating other violations the
python-handles-it capability?

In other words, if I don't take the time to develop a deep understanding of
Objective C's memory management, can I rely on something other than random
chance to keep me out of trouble?  Or is that knowledge actually required?

2) tutorial.html in the docs file says: "It is even possible to include all
of Python (or, if you are using Apple's Python 2.2, all the bits of Python
that are non-standard), this gives you an application that is distributable
to anyone in the world (as long as they have Mac OS X 10.2)! Unfortunately,
the exact details of this procedure are not streamlined enough for inclusion
in this tutorial at this point in time."

OK, but is there a way I can find out how to do it? I would be creating an
app that I will be hoping a lot of non-developers will download and run.

3) While I've done an solid amount of Python programming on Solaris, I have
used it only minimally on the Mac. This app would need to control a separate
standard OS X app locally via AppleEvents, receive XML-RPC requests from
other machines, and send XML-RPC requests to other machines.

Any forseeable problems doing all that with Python's standard libraries and
PyObjC?


Thank you in advance for any and all insight...

--Gary

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Gary Robinson
CEO
Transpose, LLC
gro...@tr...
207-942-3463
http://www.transpose.com
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454