Re: [Pythoncard-users] Python distribution problems

[Steve C. <stn...@xm...>]

Alex Tweedly wrote:
> Schollnick, Benjamin wrote:
> 
> >
> >I am unclear on what you are suggesting they are basing their decisions
> >on?  (The quote does not include it)  Presumably on the fact that they
> >need to instead Python, WxPython, and PythonCard?  Windows programmers
> >are fully aware of dependencies...  .Net anyone?  
> >
> True - they are aware of them - but that doesn't mean they like them. I 
> think it would be pretty cool to have the *option* of a single download 
> and install to do Python, wxPython and Pythoncard in one easy operation. 
> I have no idea how easy it would be to create that - but I suspect it 
> would overcome some people's concerns about the complexity of getting 
> started with Pythoncard.

So, something similar to the Enthought Python distribution?

    http://www.enthought.com/downloads/downloads.htm

I'm not sure how much work was required to bundle all those into a single
distribution, or how often they update the entire package. 

As someone mentioned down-thread, tracking all the options and
dependencies and creating distributions will be a big job.


What about some sort of wizard interface that would step the user
through the process? Sort of like the cygwin setup script. e.g. a tool
written in PythonCard that'd allow the user to select versions of
python/wxPython, unicode flavors, etc. 

Rather than PythonCard distributing a huge bundle, the PythonCard
website would distribute a URLs to the 'good' installers, download the
binaries via urllib and launch the install process for
python/wxpython/pythoncard.

Still a big job, but it might be more managable than the alternative.


-Steve