deploying big python applications

[AndyL]

Hi,

let me describe how I do that today. There is standard python taken from 
  python.org installed in a c:\python23 with at least dozen different 
additional python packages (e.g. SOAPpy, Twisted, wx, many smaller ones 
etc) included. Also python23.dll moved from c:\windows to c:\python23. 
This is zipped and available as over 100MB file to anyone to manually 
unzip on his/her PC. This is a one time step.

On top of that there is 30K lines of code with over 100 .py files 
application laid out within a directory tree. Very specific for the 
domain, typical application. This again is zipped and available to 
anyone as much smaller file to unzip and use. This step is per software 
releases.

There is one obvious drawback - I can not separate python from standard 
libraries easily. So when upgrade to 2.4 comes, I need to reinstall all 
the packages. In order to address that as well as the Linux port I 
project following structure:
	-default python.org installation or one time step on Windows
	-set of platform dependent libraries in directory A
	-set of platform independent libraries in directory B
	-application in directory C

This way I can easily port (or just use) entire software under 
Linux/Unix yet do not have to worry about collecting all the packages 
evry time I change the platform or the version of Python.

I hope I described it well enough. How to achieve it, is there any 
better solution, or ready one. Please advice.

Thx in advance, A.