I will bring some water to the mill (as we say in french).
A win user's point of view and random remarks.
o Do not forget "Python" is an interpreter. It uses external
modules on the fly, it can uses GUI toolkits as it can use pure
math toolkits. This is certainly one of the strength of Python.
o There is absolutely no reason to tight Python to particular
GUI toolkit. If a user choose a GUI over one another, that the
user's choice. All GUI toolkits have theirs advantages, Tcl/Tk
is the widespread, from there the "IDLE" application. Win users
are very well served with wxPython, some Linux users are happy
with pyGTK or pyQt...
o Python is not thought to be an "executable" creator.
o Python has its versioning issue too. However, when I installed
Python on my win98 platform, the installer allowed (and asked) me
to choose between an user's installation or an administrator
installation. In the latter case, the Python dlls are in the
..\windows\system directory. In the former case, the dlls are in,
let's say, c:\Python23 . This allows to have different Python
versions on the same machine. (The only conflict is the file type
association (*.py, *.pyc), this is a minor problem).
o In every Python dirs I can install all the external package
(Numeric, wxPython, py2exe, PythonWin, ...).
o Where will your wxPRE reside? In the application dir/path or in
the system directory. In the latter case, versioning issue; in the
former, no problem.
o How to handle extra modules, I mean modules that not Python core
or wxPython core modules? Where should they be located?
o "Having a single easy-to-use installer for wxPRE that combines
Python and wxWindows"
Again, if a wxPython user is a Python user a Python user is not
necessaraely a wxPython user.
I have a lot of pure Python applications (maily for math), not
requiring wxPython. Beside this, the Python scripts are nice for
file/dir manipulations, there is even a "grep" module.
o I can not emphase enough the quality of py2exe (Thanks Thomas).
I am not speaking about its intrisic quality as package manager. No,
I'm thinking about the package itsself, it contains everything a
user need. You can package application with a mixture of different
Python and wxPython versions. They all work (for a given platform).
There are no versioning issue at all. Even better, you can burn a
cd with a py2exe-ifed application. Your application will work from
there without having to be installed on the hd.
o py2exe. Of course, the price you have to pay for this is the
size of the application. Today with the hd capacity, it's not a
real problem.
o Windows installer.
py2exe is a packager application, not an installer. The py2exe
package is best used with an installer application, like Inno Setup.
This is the second step. And again we have to be carefull when
writing the Inno Setup script, we have to instruct the script to
where to install the Python/wxPython core files, either in the app
dir or in the win system dir.
o There is some kind of redunduncy in the couple py2exe/Inno Setup.
A elegant solution would be to have an application that creates the
package and the installer at the same time.
o Some of you know my psi application. (An executable application
build around wxPython/Python, that allows to use Python without
having all the Python stuff installed on the machine). I do not
claim it's the best application around the globe). However, I am
suprised by the number of downloads and the messages I got. This
is just to indicate, how final win users like ready-to-use
application.
Jean-Michel Fauth, Switzerland.
