> A well-designed OS shouldn't require you to keep multiple versions installed on a machine like that. A well-designed OS should require you to install a separ

> A well-designed OS shouldn't require you to keep multiple versions installed on a machine like that. A well-designed OS should require you to install a separate version of Python if the version it provides does not suit your needs. Replacing the system version of Python means that any system components that use Python are now running in an untested configuration and may break in mysterious ways. Installing your new version elsewhere removes that concern. > prepackaged versions of Python won't always install properly if you already have a Python on your system. If a prepackaged version of Python for Mac OS X won't install if you already have Python on your system, then it's broken. It's that simple. Mac OS X has shipped with Python installed for years, so such a package would not install on any modern Mac OS X installation. > I mean take a look at the installation instructions for Matplotlib. I don't know that using Matplotlib as an example really supports your argument. The installation notes about Mac OS X are a mess, but from my reading of that page it says as much about Matplotlib as it does about the state of Python on Mac OS X. On that page they recommend a third-party distribution of Python named EPD, but then go on to talk about how EPD has issues building Matplotlib on some versions of Mac OS X. Why would they recommend a version of Python that can't build their software? The page also spends a bunch of time talking about older versions of Matplotlib, and about packaging mechanisms that they no longer use. Neither of those things are relevant to the average person that is getting up and running with Matplotlib on Mac OS X. As far as I can see Matplotlib only distributes binaries for Mac OS X that require the Python.org version of Python to be installed. With such a version of Python installed, the process for installing Matplotlib appears to be as simple as: 1) Install NumPy from http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.6.1/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.6.1/ 2) Install Matplotlib from http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/matplotlib/matplotlib-1.1.0/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/matplotlib/.... As far as I can tell, this is exactly the same process as for Matplotlib on Windows. Right down to installing a version of Python from python.org. I'm not even sure that's strictly necessary. The hand-wavy mention of problems with the system version of Python on the installation page are so void of context and detail that they're impossible to evaluate.