Re: [Visualpython-users] History and Status?

[Bruce S. <bas...@un...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur" <ajs...@op...>
To: "Bruce Sherwood" <bas...@un...>; "John Keck"
<joh...@ho...>; <vis...@li...>
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Visualpython-users] History and Status?

> I agree 100% that community expectations have evolved, and are not today
> what they were say when VPython was first released.  And that this
accounts
> in part for the problem.  But I do think certain things are clear. Like
> using site-packages for the visual "library" files.  What is less clear -
> and where there seems to be more divergence in practice - is in the
> placement of demo and documentation files.
>
> It seems to me that these, in the end, should be totally off the python
> directory tree.  I guess the way I would think of it, in a typical Windows
> distribution analogy, is that the install of the functonal dlls (and
related
> .py files) that no one is expected to access directly (we are only
> interested in their functionality) is placed ujnder c:/Windows (analogous
> here to the Lib\site-packages under Python directory) and the "program
> files" - here the demos, docs, and maybe a customized IDE - under the
> c:\Program Files directory (which might simply be a c:\Program
Files\VPython
> direcotry, or a c:\VPython directory.
>
> That's my preference.

I tried the experiment on Windows of moving the "visual" folder (containing
the Visual-associated .py files) to Lib\site-packages and also moving
DLLs\cvisual.dll into Lib\site-packages\visual. Works fine. Wouldn't that be
a reasonable deployment on Windows? Keep all the technical stuff in one
place?

I would prefer not to put any of these pieces in C:\Windows because that's
such an amorphous hodge-podge. And while there's no point in accessing
cvisual.dll directly, it can be of interest to an increasingly sophisticated
user to examine the .py files. Note that Numeric puts everything in one
place, too, so there's some precedent.

There's really only one place for the Visual docs on Windows -- in
Doc\visual.

As I mentioned in an earlier note, the Idle issue is on its way to a
solution, given the intent for the standard Idle to be replaced in Python
2.3 with the daughter of Scherer's version of Idle. The only issue for
novices is the need to offer different configuration files for the new Idle:
adding a pointer to the Visual help, specifying the editor window as the
default startup (rather than the interactive Python shell), and (assuming
that this is going to get into the configuration machinery for the new Idle)
specifying autosave of files on each run (the default is that each time you
press F5 a dialog box intrudes asking whether you want to save the file).
Possibly these could be choices the user would be asked to make in the
distutil installation.

That leaves the question of where to put the Visual demos. Currently they're
in PythonXX\Programs\Demos, which is highly arbitrary. Moreover, the
Programs part has proven to be irrelevant, so that PythonXX\Demos would make
more sense. I don't discern any pattern on Windows that suggests where
Python demos should go. By default, I favor PythonXX\Demos\Visual, and start
to encourage developers of other packages to put associated demos in
PythonXX\Demos\SomePackage.

I don't have much feel for conventions on Linux/Unix, but if it wouldn't
violate community standards it does seem attractive to put as much stuff as
possible in one place, site-packages/visual.

There's one more item concerning bundling. The Numeric installer doesn't
install any documentation. The bundled VPython installer does install the
Numeric pdf file. I'd like this to continue to be an easy option.

Bruce Sherwood