OT: Python application deployment?

[Lee Harr]

In article <16411664.REEpLcBOk5 at lothar.cengija.com>, Davor Cengija wrote:
> I wrote a simple python program with gui for a friend of mine and his 
> projects at local university. His co-workers didn't want to use it since 
> 'it's too small, obviously it doesn't do what we need'. It's about 45k of 
> python source. Then I created self-standing exe with mcmillan's installer. 
> It's now about 7mb in size. Now it looks 'respectable' and 'worth of trying 
> but not for serious work since it doesn't have setup.exe with EULA and 
> other things -- so it isn't a real program'. Now I'm looking for a free 
> install-shield like software.
> 
> So, it isn't the quality of a software what only counts. Actually, I'm not 
> sure that the quality is the most important thing these days.


It is definitely a point of resistance for getting people to try Python.

If they click on an "applet" in their web browser and it suddenly starts
downloading all of a java runtime, they are quite happy when their 300 line
java program runs. But ask them to go to the python.org website and install
a programming environment which makes all of windows and java look like
a bad joke, and they cannot make the effort.

It seems that some people want everything to converge inside the browser,
but for me that is just not acceptable. I typically have 6-10 browser windows
open to various pages that I am working on. If some crazy applet freaks out
and crashes my browser, that is a huge hit to my productivity.

Ok, now I am way off topic. How about this as food for thought: What are the
chances that MS would include brilliant and free tools like Python or Perl
with their base OS? Ok. I will go laugh myself silly now  :o)