Update automation and related issues (was: Python Webstart ?)

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1gkazd2.1qm3g0u1l6b7lmN%aleaxit at yahoo.com>,
Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
>huy <nytimes at swiftdsl.com.au> wrote:
>   ...
>> Great idea Daniel. An SVN client would work well. I'll think about it
>> for a while but I think this would be a real option.
>
>SVN sounds attractive because, among other things, it's _designed_ to be
>scripted with Python (and no doubt in other ways, but I've noticed the
>Python part only).  However, it sounds as if all you need is some
>variant of "os.system('svn up')" at program start (_before_ importing
>any module that is part of the app), so that 'cvs up' or any other
>revision control system would be just as fine.
>
>And most likely so would be a roll-your-own approach, which might go
>something like...:
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>There -- in barebones term, isn't that roughly what you need?  Sure, you
>can conceive enhancements of it, a lot of them -- enhanced error
>handling (this one doesn't DO much...:-), a log of what was updated when
>(that might take the place of the tiny local_ver_filepath file), keeping
>version numbers in the same zipfile as the modules rather than in a
>small separate file (you still want a separate URL on the server so you
>can check that no update is needed as fast as possible, of course), etc,
>etc.  But, roughly speaking, it does appear to me that this
>twelve-statements-or-less function just ight meet your need even better
>than svn or cvs would... depending on your exact needs, of course!-)
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I've been hesitating to say this, for fear language territoriality
would obscure the serious concepts afloat here.  I think it's time,
though ...

The Tcl community has made fascinating progress on what I call "deploy-
ment" issues.  Places to begin reading:  <URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/ped >,
<URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/deployment >, and <URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/vfs >.
If nothing else, I think it might interest Pythoneers to read that, "oh,
if I solve *this* problem, then a user-maintained help system falls out",
and so on.