Stand-Alone Python Executable Skeletons

[Calvin Spealman]

I've recently been looking into different options to package python
code into stand-alone executables, with tools like Py2EXE and
PyInstaller, but I'm left feeling a little lost. Documentation seems
sparse on all of them, the setups a little unusual to me. It feels
like they could be a lot simpler, or that I could put in some
preliminary work to make it easier for my needs in the long run. I'm
hoping someone can help me pick the best option.

What I would love to do (or know if it is possible) is have a set of
executables, for Linux, Windows, and OS X, with a Zip archive appended
to the end of them. I know the zip archive at the end of an executable
works with EXE and ELF binaries, but does it work for whatever OSX
uses (I have no mac machines, currently)? I'd like to build these
three empty stand-alone python executables, setup such that they'll
run any main.py sitting at the top level of the archive. After this,
building for all three platforms would just be a matter of copying the
empty versions and dumping the project into it.

I'm leaning on doing this with PyInstaller being the easiest. Am I
headed in the right direction? Ideally, these empty stand-alones could
be distributed for use by others without any tools required to use
them other than a zip utility.

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