On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Tim Lahey <tim.la...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:37 PM, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> In order to use Cython on OS X, one currently needs XCode. Cython is >> a really core feature of Sage. >> E.g., I talk about it a lot in my Sage course for undergrads [1], and >> on Wednesday I had some very confused >> students in class that couldn't get Cython to work on their own >> computers (running OS X)... since as it turned out >> they didn't have XCode installed. I wonder if the error message >> when trying to use %cython mode in the notebook on OS X could be >> improved... > > OS X comes with XCode, it's just not installed. It's just XCode 4 that > costs $4.99. However, what happens if people install a binary gcc?
How? > Does Cython work at that point? Surely not. > Or are you just arguing that XCode is > necessary because it's an easy way to a binary gcc. I don't know how to install GCC on OS X, except by installing XCode. There is a lot more to GCC than "just a binary". There are lots of system headers, development libraries, etc. It is likely illegal to redistribute these without Apple's permission. These come with XCode. > I understand why XCode isn't installed by default since the developer > tools and documentation is several GB. Most people don't need that. > > I'm of the general opinion that XCode 4 being $4.99 isn't a problem. > It's entirely possible that it will be included with 10.7, we just > don't know. I've worked on platforms where the development tools have > cost much more, but we still have XCode 3. For people who are only > using the compilers, that's more than adequate since we can download > the source for the updated compilers. > > To comment on the thread title, Apple hasn't forked gcc. They worked > on developing a BSD compiler (clang) and since then, people have done > work to use gcc as the front end and llvm as the back end. The > Dragonegg project is the most recent work on this. Apple wanted a BSD > compiler since they couldn't integrate the compiler into XCode on the > level they wanted with the GCC compiler due to the GPL license. It would be frustrating if once Apple switches away from GCC completely, they start charging a few hundred bucks for XCode... -- William -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
