Installing programs that depend on, or are, python extensions.

[David Cournapeau]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 2:19 PM, James A. Donald <jamesdnld730 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have noticed that installing python programs tends to be hell,
> particularly under windows, and installing python programs that rely
> on, or in large part are, python extensions written in C++ tends to be
> hell on wheels with large spiky knobs and scythes on the wheels.
>
> Is this because such install are inherently hard to do and hard to
> write, or is it because Install tends to be done last, and therefore
> not done at all?

Most likely both.

Packaging complex application is hard, and I think few programmers
like doing it, so it is rarely done correctly.

>
> Can anyone suggest any examples of such a program with a clean windows
> install that shows how it was done?
>
> By windows install, I mean you run setup.exe, and get a program group,
> file types registered, and an entry in the add/remove programs list, I
> do not mean fourteen pages of direly incomplete notes which do not
> actually work for versions later than 1.01, and do not work for
> version 1.01 unless one has already installed the complete developer
> environment.

Well, python itself is a reasonably good example I think. But if you
are interested in having one python program which is a one click
install without requiring the user to even install python, you will
need to look into tools like py2exe which can create all the files
necessary to do so from an existing python package. Then, you package
those files into a nice installer. I like nsis, which is open source
and relatively well documented, but there are other solutions as well.

cheers,

David