[Pythonedu-wg] The installation and deployment experience

[Nicholas H.Tollervey]

Given that Python is packaged for (all the weird and wacky versions of)
Windows, there must be some expertise within the community for how to do
this.

I wonder if Tim Golden is on this list... Tim? Are you there (two taps
for "yes", one tap for "no"). ;-)

(Tim is an extraordinarily talented Python core developer, all round
good egg and active Windows user - he's bound to know who to reach out to).

N.

On 18/05/16 10:52, Stewart Watkiss wrote:
> 
>> That'll mean pre-packaged, certified and checked installers for all
>> sorts of weird and wacky Windows environments.
> 
> So sounds like the simplest way in terms of getting the packages
> installed is to have a single Windows install package (msi) that can be
> handed to the appropriate IT administrators for them to install.
> 
> By weird and wacky - I'm guessing that we need to take account of the
> following:
> * Different versions of python
> * Different versions of Windows
> * Different architectures (32bit vs 64bit)
> * Different python install directories
> * Any other things that could complicate this?
> 
> The problem then comes with helping the teacher / IT administrator
> choose the right package. For example one of the issues with installing
> Pygame is that the website lists 8 different installers which only go up
> to Python 3.2. Bitbucket has 10 different installers (+10 zip files)
> which go up to python 3.4 (but not 3.5 which is the latest Python
> release for Windows). Potentially there could be a huge number of
> packages which could be confusing.
> 
> The following may help make this a little easier:
> 
> * Restrict the versions of Python that are supported. I think it makes
> sense to only use Python 3.x for the "official" education install. Or
> perhaps even be more specific and recommend only specific versions of
> Python for use in education (perhaps current and 1 previous version -
> eg. 3.5 and 3.4)?
> * Or perhaps have the installer look for different versions and install
> accordingly (not sure how easy this is to implement, assuming sticking
> with version 3 then I expect it's more about installing into the right
> folders than having multiple versions of the modules).
> 
> I don't actually have any experience with creating Windows install
> files, but it doesn't look it should be too difficult - famous last
> words :-). I've installed Visual Studio, so I'm going to take a look at
> that myself - although if anyone already has any guides / best practices
> / suggestions then please let me know. So the next thing would be to
> decide what packages we would include - I'll leave this discussion to
> run first.
> 
> This is just my thoughts - please let me know if you think there is a
> better way or if you have any suggestions.
> 
> Stewart
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Pythonedu-wg mailing list
> Pythonedu-wg at python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonedu-wg


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 473 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonedu-wg/attachments/20160518/2db16434/attachment.sig>