[Visualpython-users] Cocoa-based VPython desperately needed on the Mac

[Bruce S. <bas...@nc...>]

I should alert everyone to a ticking time bomb with respect to VPython
on a Mac, in the hopes that someone in the community can contribute to
a solution.

When the first native-mode Mac version of VPython was created, it
didn't seem possible to base it on the Cocoa environment of the Mac,
due to issues with threading. As I understand it (though I don't claim
much expertise on the matter), the problem is that Cocoa wants to be
the primary thread, yet to run a Python program Python has to start,
then read a .py file, and in the VPython case establish threading of
Python computations and periodic OpenGL graphics operations, all of
which is antithetical to standard Cocoa architecture. In fact, in a
Cocoa mailing list one expert said that just such conflicts had made
it extremely difficult to implement Java within a Cocoa environment.

As a result, Mac VPython is based on the older Carbon environment,
despite the fact that Apple is dropping support for Carbon and has in
fact announced that Carbon will never run as a 64-bit environment. If
at some point there is no 32-bit Python, there will be no way to
produce a Carbon-based VPython. In that case, unless some way is found
to implement a Cocoa-based VPython, the only way to have a Mac Python
will be to revert to a "non-native" Unix-oriented version based on
X11, without the standard Mac look and feel.

If you have the necessary expertise to contribute to finding a way to
base VPython on Cocoa, please let me know!

Bruce Sherwood