[Python-Dev] Any tips to tell sprinter at PyCon about developing on Windows?

[Brett Cannon]

On Feb 2, 2008 7:34 PM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> Brett Cannon wrote:
> > Anyway, to make the tutorial as useful as possible I need to worry
> > about Windows users. But being an OS X/UNIX user, I don't know how to
> > help these people. =) As or right now I am going to point them to the
> > readme.txt file in PCbuild for build instructions. But I don't know if
> > there is any tips or tricks I should be pointing out to them in terms
> > of developing on Python. I mean I assume they can use the build
> > executable from their svn checkout and have it pick up changes they
> > make to code in the checkout, right? I honestly don't know how
> > different it is to develop on Windows than on UNIX.
> >
> > So any info that people can give me to cover would be helpful.
>
> I can provide some guidance for the poor Windows souls. :] The VS 2008
> Express Edition makes it easy to compile Python on Windows. There is no
> need to install any extra SDK packages, additional compilers or whatsoever.
>
> Windows users need:
>
> Visual Studio Express Edition (VS C++ 2008)
> http://www.microsoft.com/express/
>
> Tortoise SVN (integrates into the explorer)
> http://tortoisesvn.net/
>
> Putty for writable checkouts (I highly recommend to use the agent)
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
>
> Not required but very useful
> ----------------------------
>
> Notepad++ to edit Python files
> http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/
>
> Total Commander (best Norton Commander clone for Windows)
> http://ghisler.com/
>
> SVN command line program
> http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html
>
> Unix for Windows
> http://cygwin.com/
>
>
> The PCbuild directory contains several helper bat files. The most
> important files are build_env.bat and rt.bat. Build_env.bat opens a
> command prompt and sets several env vars. rt.bat is a wrapper for the
> unit test suite. I normally use "rt -q" or "rt -q -v test_egg
> test_spam". build.bat must be run inside build_env command prompt.
> build_pgo won't work with the express edition.
>

PCbuild/readme.txt says that pressing F6 will also build everything
fine. Is that true as well?

And what is the best way to just launch an interpreter? Just
double-click the built executable? I assume sys.path will still be set
up properly to use the checkout.

> The Windows developers should checkout the sources in a directory
> without non ASCII chars and without spaces. I'm using the directory
> c:\dev\python\ as root for development on Windows. Checkout the trunk
> and py3k in the directory as well as the external dependencies. You
> don't need Perl for the ssl package but Express Edition users must
> compile BSDDB manually for Win32 Release|db_static and Win32
> Debug|db_static. build_tkinter.py builds the Tkinter dependencies.
>
> I'm trying to hang out on IRC during PyCon so I might be able to assist
> with Windows questions.
>

Great! I am going to expect people to already know how to use svn aand
have a compiler set up, just not necessarily started a compile yet. So
I suspect most issues will just be best practices stuff.

> It would be really cool if you can recruit some experienced Windows
> developers. :]

That's the point in all of this. =)

-Brett