The “Installing Python on Mac OS X” section of this guide claims that Apple's Python contains:
significant changes that can cause hidden bugs
There's a pretty complete list of changes on Apple's website, none of which look particularly “significant” to me. Granted, things like this maybe cause a little confusion from time to time, but I've personally developed using the system Python for years and years and it's never really caused any significant issues for me. Plus, re-building things like PyObjC from source is a non-trivial amount of time for users who might want to use Python for automation applications like Scripting Bridge.
Personally when helping novices get their machines set up for learn-python workshops, a “brew install”ed or otherwise source-built Python has occasionally been the source of a lot of confusion for me. So I’d like it if resources like this guide would stop suggesting it, but I don’t even really know what I could suggest that would assuage your concerns, since the concerns are not even documented.
The “Installing Python on Mac OS X” section of this guide claims that Apple's Python contains:
There's a pretty complete list of changes on Apple's website, none of which look particularly “significant” to me. Granted, things like this maybe cause a little confusion from time to time, but I've personally developed using the system Python for years and years and it's never really caused any significant issues for me. Plus, re-building things like PyObjC from source is a non-trivial amount of time for users who might want to use Python for automation applications like Scripting Bridge.
Personally when helping novices get their machines set up for learn-python workshops, a “brew install”ed or otherwise source-built Python has occasionally been the source of a lot of confusion for me. So I’d like it if resources like this guide would stop suggesting it, but I don’t even really know what I could suggest that would assuage your concerns, since the concerns are not even documented.