[Python-Dev] Any tips to tell sprinter at PyCon about developing on Windows?

[Christian Heimes]

Brett Cannon wrote:
> Anyway, to make the tutorial as useful as possible I need to worry
> about Windows users. But being an OS X/UNIX user, I don't know how to
> help these people. =) As or right now I am going to point them to the
> readme.txt file in PCbuild for build instructions. But I don't know if
> there is any tips or tricks I should be pointing out to them in terms
> of developing on Python. I mean I assume they can use the build
> executable from their svn checkout and have it pick up changes they
> make to code in the checkout, right? I honestly don't know how
> different it is to develop on Windows than on UNIX.
> 
> So any info that people can give me to cover would be helpful.

I can provide some guidance for the poor Windows souls. :] The VS 2008
Express Edition makes it easy to compile Python on Windows. There is no
need to install any extra SDK packages, additional compilers or whatsoever.

Windows users need:

Visual Studio Express Edition (VS C++ 2008)
http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Tortoise SVN (integrates into the explorer)
http://tortoisesvn.net/

Putty for writable checkouts (I highly recommend to use the agent)
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Not required but very useful
----------------------------

Notepad++ to edit Python files
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

Total Commander (best Norton Commander clone for Windows)
http://ghisler.com/

SVN command line program
http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html

Unix for Windows
http://cygwin.com/


The PCbuild directory contains several helper bat files. The most
important files are build_env.bat and rt.bat. Build_env.bat opens a
command prompt and sets several env vars. rt.bat is a wrapper for the
unit test suite. I normally use "rt -q" or "rt -q -v test_egg
test_spam". build.bat must be run inside build_env command prompt.
build_pgo won't work with the express edition.

The Windows developers should checkout the sources in a directory
without non ASCII chars and without spaces. I'm using the directory
c:\dev\python\ as root for development on Windows. Checkout the trunk
and py3k in the directory as well as the external dependencies. You
don't need Perl for the ssl package but Express Edition users must
compile BSDDB manually for Win32 Release|db_static and Win32
Debug|db_static. build_tkinter.py builds the Tkinter dependencies.

I'm trying to hang out on IRC during PyCon so I might be able to assist
with Windows questions.

It would be really cool if you can recruit some experienced Windows
developers. :]

Christian