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I'm learning programming and have been working with Ruby and ROR, but feel I like Python's language better for learning programming. Although I see the beauty of Ruby and Rails, I feel I need a language more easy to learn programming concepts, thus Python. However, I can't seem to find a community online or offline that work on Apple osx; mostly seems to be PC people for Python. What I like about Ruby is that there is a lot of books, communities, etc, and they tend to have a good amount of Mac resources. Would someone be able to point me to an google groups, forums, etc for beginner Python programming that may have tutorials, or help for people running on Mountain Lion? I'm feeling a little frustrated and caught between the Ruby Vs. Python paradigm, and just want some mac specific resources working with latest Python and eventually Django.
Thanks for any help you may be able to offer!
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Your best way to get started with Python on macOS is through the IDLE integrated development environment, see section The IDE and use the Help menu when the IDE is running. If you want to run Python scripts from the Terminal window command line or from the Finder you first need an editor to create your script.
Python comes pre-installed on Mac OS X so it is easy to start using. However, to take advantage of the latest versions of Python, you will need to download and install newer versions alongside the system ones. The easiest way to do that is to install one of the binary installers for OS X from the Python Download page.
Install Python 3 with the Official Installer First, download an installer package from the Python website. To do that, visit https://www.python.org/downloads/ on your Mac; it detects your operating system automatically and shows a big button for downloading the latest version of Python installer on your Mac.
Mac OS X 10.8 comes bundled with Python 2.7.2 found at /usr/bin/python. Generally in the Python world your operating system is abstracted away, so there aren't that many OS-specific communities. Apple fully embraces Python, however, and you can even write fully native applications using Python.
My suggestions to get you started would be to:
Install homebrew - This is an open source package installer for Mac OS X, inspired by Debian's apt-get or RedHat's yum. This will allow you to easily install many of the system-level dependencies like database servers, NoSQL servers, system libraries, and so on. You will inevitably be required to install this stuff as time goes by, so it's best to have the right tool for the job!
Install pip - The Python package installer. You won't regret it. This will allow you to easily manage external Python packages.
Check out the official Python tutorial. It's quite good, but also assumes you have at least basic understanding of programming.
Check out Learn Python the Hard Way, a free e-Book by Zed Shaw, which assumes no prior programming experience and is very, very easy to follow.
These should keep you busy for a while!!
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