[Edu-sig] Re: PEPTALK: path sanity and newbie mental

[Lee Harr]

>- What is the difference from double-clicking setup.py compared to running
>"python setup.py install" ?
>

Well, if the person creating this intends for it to be used in windows,
he should be making a windows installer also.

It is very simple with distutils... when creating the package, use

python setup.py bdist_wininst

and the installer is created automatically.  I can create a windows
installer using distutils from my FreeBSD machine. I always do this,
even though I never use any windows software myself.

>And IF python were truly cross-platform it would strive for a consistent
>solution which also makes good sense for Windows.
>In practice, I have the impression that most Python docs and the official
>ones are notably *nix oriented.

I just find that windows is not a very good software development
platform, because it hides too much from would be developers.

That said, Python is clearly way ahead of the pack in the cross-platform
race.  However, I think if you want to be a developer, finding a good
shell is a must.  It's nice to be able to:

21:29 >cd
21:29 >mkdir dev_area
21:29 >cd dev_area/
21:29 >setenv PYTHONPATH `pwd`
21:29 >mkdir a_new_package
21:30 >cd a_new_package/
21:30 >touch __init__.py
21:30 >cat > a_module.py
class Foo:
  pass
21:30 >python
Python 2.2.3 (#1, Jun  9 2003, 18:01:50)
[GCC 2.95.4 20020320 [FreeBSD]] on freebsd4
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>from a_new_package import a_module
>>>foo = a_module.Foo()
>>>

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