Is there an active Python community in Haiku? The few posts mentioning Python give the impression that this language is not much used in Haiku.
What is the current status of Python in Haiku? And what are the prospects of a Python developer on this platform?
The status of the Python language and the community, is frozen in time since 2011 no updates. But feel free, to continue to update and keep the community alive. Below is the link that might help you:
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/language/python
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/language/bethon
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/tool-kits/anygui
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/games/pygame
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/language/heymodule
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/games/pyguess
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/utilities/command-line-shell/ycon
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/ides/makpythonview
http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/development/class-libraries/pygameplus
http://h6o6.com/2013/03/using-python-and-the-nltk-to-find-haikus-in-the-public-twitter-stream/
Well … I think for someone who needs the kind of assurances you’re asking for, the prospects are pretty poor!
There are all kinds of reasons to stay away from Haiku. It’s for people who can’t listen to reason, and certainly it’s for people who don’t need to be part of a big crowd. Python development is of course a tiny minority within a tiny minority, so the “active” index probably changes drastically from one month to the next, as the one or two things get started or completed.
As for the technical side of the situation … what kind of Python development? The question here is about platform dependencies - as far as I know, Python runs without real problems on Haiku, so we can take for granted that you can process data files etc. the same as on any platform. Let’s say there are three kinds of Python application:
(Note that there’s no TK here, Wx, etc.)
Haiku’s Python interface modules should be accommodate the second case, with a little luck. You have access to most of the Application and Interface kits. The third case, though, not so much. Why not? Not because it’s any different, in principle really. But that application developer is not going to find what he or she’s looking for, because Python’s Haiku platform support is only a “thin” layer over the native C++ API. You need to know C++ to understand it, and it isn’t going to be significantly more convenient than the underlying C++, maybe less convenient in some ways. And it’s inevitably going to fall a little short of a native C++ application in one way or another.
Current version of python for Haiku is 3.2, so it’s a bit behind. Apart from that, many build tools, as well as package management tools rely on python. As long as you are not developing UI applications, you can assume they will work on Haiku without any issues.
But since Haiku only has a very small niche in the OS landscape, the intersection between Haiku developers and Python developers might not be very large.
It would be nice to have a bigger Python-Haiku community…
P.S. Can someone delete Merry’s comment? Looks like spam.
EDIT: Deleted already. I see…