How does one distribute Tkinter or Qt GUI apps Developed in Python

[Rick Johnson]

On Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 6:03:55 PM UTC-6, Bruce Whealton wrote:

> Surely, one is going to want to create GUI apps for users
> that are not Python Developers. I would not think to ask
> someone to install Python on their system and make sure it
> is added to the path. Maybe it is not so hard for the non-
> technical, average users.
> 
> I would want to package in some way so that when launched,
> it installs whatever is needed on the end user's computer.
> How is this done? Are there common practices for this?


Your assumptions are correct! In fact, in a language that was "supposedly" designed to be an "applications language" (eat your heart out D'Aprano!!!), one would think that distributing apps would not only be obvious, but also intuitive!

 ALAS, THE CRUEL REALITIES OF INTERPRETED LANGUAGES SLAPS YOU IN THE PASTEY WHITE FACE! 

Unlike a true "applications language", like say, um, *JAVA*, one cannot simply compile an executable and distribute it in a teeny tiny binary form, no, with Python, the end user must either (1) have Python on his machine already, (2) download Python, or (3) you must package a Python interpreter along with your script (and dependencies) -- which will end up being a very large file just to run (what is in most cases) a very small script. 

 BOO-HISS!

But the good news is that, Python ships on many machines already. But of course, you're seeking more consistency in your distribution QA than the "wild guess" and the fickle nature of "lady luck". 

Many 3rd party libraries exist to solve your distribution issue. Google probably knows about all (or at least most) of them.