which windows python to use?

[nikie]

Brian Blais wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Are there any recommendations for which Windows python version to use?  I'd like to
> see a pros-and-cons description of each, given that different uses might dictate
> different versions.  The versions I know (and there are surely more) are:
>
> 1) download from www.python.org
> 2) enthought
> 3) activepython
>
> Are there advantages/disadvantages?  I have used enthought before, but it seems as if
> they are not at 2.4, and may lag behind in versions (which may not be a bad thing).

It depends on what you want to do. If you're going to use SciPy (a
library for scientific computing), I'd suggest using enthought, as
installing SciPy on windows can be a real nightmare for a newbie...
Anyway, the enthought edition comes with lots of interesting libraries
installed (listed on their homepage), you might want to look at them
even if you don't use their distribution. Note that you can have more
than one Python installation on the same PC, so you can also work with
Python 2.4 (from www.python.org) and switch to enthought for certain
projectes if you need it.

I haven't looked into ActivePython too much, from what I read it seemed
more or less standard python + mark hammonds Win32 utils, but you can
install those manually on a plain www.python.org-distribution.