Simple module installation

[Paul Prescod]

I was just installing Fnorb and it was as painless an installation as a
sane person could ask for but I got to thinking...couldn't this be less
painless? The reason I ask is because I'm thinking of distributing code
that depends on code that depends on code that depends on Fnorb and I need
each installation part to be as simple as possible. So this isn't meant to
pick on Fnorb in particular but to use it as a random sample package with
binary and Python parts.

The only thing that makes it extremely mildly painful is that it requires
setting a few environment variables:

FNORB_HOME  
PYTHONPATH  
PATH 

The PYTHONPATH and PATH would be unneccessary if Fnorb used the Windows
registry. Even so, I think that a Python-managed, portable, text
file-based registry (like JPython's) would be better than depending upon
the over-centralized Windows registry.

FNORB_HOME seems to only exist in order to implement a feature that Andrew
Kuchling has asked for before. Fnorb has a bunch of tiny scripts that do
this:

@python.exe "%FNORB_HOME%"\Fnorb\script\fnendian %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8
%9

If Python could find scripts in its PYTHONPATH then this wouldn't be
necessary. So this is a feature request for that feature. I can implement
it if people agree it would be a good idea:

python -r script: run the script named "script.py" in the PYTHONPATH

If we put my idea for a Python-managed registry together with the "-r"
idea then Fnorb could register itself on Windows or Unix like this:

python -r register Fnorb /path/to/fnorb

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are basically 
good at heart." - Anne Frank