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General Python Community

The Python community is large and vigorous. There are mailing lists ranging from python-help (a helpdesk where knowledgeable volunteers will try to answer your questions) to the Special Interest Group mailing lists where people discuss using Python is specific target areas. There are conferences, user groups at the local level and anything in between. There is the Python Package Index (PyPI) and the starship, where you can find packages developed and distributed by other Python programmers. There are books, job listings and much more.

The easiest entry point to all this information is the community section on www.python.org.

MacPython Community

One Special Interest Group I will mention here is the PythonMac SIG, which has discussions on Macintosh-specific aspects of Python.

These discussions range from beginners questions to design of the next version of MacPython. The model of having only a single mailing list for this wide range of topics has worked really well so far, so we will try to keep it as long as convenient. You should definitely not hesitate to join, even if you are just starting with MacPython!

Searching the mailing list archive is best done with Google, use a query like site:mail.python.org pythonmac-sig midi to find all pythonmac-SIG messages that mention "midi". See GoogleTips on the general Python wiki for more tips.

A companion website to this one is Bob Ippolito's www.pythonmac.org which has a wiki, a list of other community resources and more.

Finally, there's an AIM/iChat group "MacPython". Start iChat, File->Go to Chat... and type MacPython.

Related communities

Of course most SIGs will have some overlap with the MacPython community, but two deserve special mention. The PyObjC project maintains the bridge between Python and Objective-C, and thereby Python access to Cocoa. Their mailing lists can be found through the PyObjC homepage at pyobjc.sourceforge.net. Another active group is the wxPython-Mac group, on the subject of building and using the wxWindows cross-platform GUI toolkit from MacPython. See the community section on wxpython.org for details.

Other MacPython resources

There is an Open Directory page on MacPython, please submit your links there if they are not on the page yet.