Re: [Bitpim-devel] Startup script for BitPim on Macs

[Steven P. <n9...@n9...>]

On Mar 15, 2004, at 8:14 AM, Tom Pollard wrote:
> I'm not sure how things are done on the other platforms, but I would 
> have expected you to use the 'freeze' system for packaging a  script 
> as a standalone executable, similarly to 'perl2exe' and it's ilk.

  Except, as far as I know, that does not work properly on MacOS X. 
Prove me wrong, I won't mind. ;^)

> the user to have a separate, working Python installation.  From the 
> recent problem report on the bitpim-user list, we saw that Python is 
> an optional install on MacOS X.  The BitPim startup script doesn't do 
> anything that you can't do just as easily with a shell script, and a 
> shell script would remove the need for a working Python on the user's 
> machine.

  An optional install, yes, but one that is marked by default on every 
installation. So, unless a user intentionally goes out of their way 
when doing the install or upgrade to make it NOT install, it will be 
there.

> I've attached a shell script that could be used to replace the current 
> BitPim python startup script.  It uses a small shell function to 
> extract the parent directory name from a filepath because the 
> 'dirname' shell utility (like Python) is only there in MacOS X if the 
> user installs the optional BSD package. Otherwise, it's just about 
> line-for-line equivalent with the python version.

  Honestly, I'm not all that concerned about watching out for people who 
intentionally go into their installation process and remove things 
without knowing what they are doing. Also, it was not my design to 
build the bundle this way, I am using the standard "bundlebuilder.py" 
routine that is part of the Python distribtution and is, as far as I 
can tell, the accepted and "approved" way to build distributable 
bundles on MacOS X. To wedge in a different script would require 
gutting the work done by bundlebuilder.py and making it a manual 
process each time.

  Just my $0.02.

  If you think that your approach should be integrated into the 
bundlebuilder.py module as an alternative launch mechanism, perhaps it 
would be worthwhile joining the MacPython list (if you aren't already 
on it) and throwing it out there for discussion. It might be a useful 
option.