Question

Is there an easy way to run both Python 2.7 and 3.2 on an OS X machine? I have been using IDLE with Python 3.2 and have numerous programs written using Python 3, so I don’t really want to uninstall 3. However, I’m working on an assignment that uses 2.7 for a lot of its base code, so I’d like to be able to run 2.7.

Answer 1

OS X 10.7 and 10.8 come with Python 2.7 pre-installed; /usr/bin/python:

$ /usr/bin/python2.7
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Jun 16 2011, 16:59:05) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2335.15.00)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

Installing additional versions of python isn’t prohibited however; the Python for Mac 2.7.3 installer won’t interfere with the system install or your Python 3 installation.