[Distutils] Packaging today

[Steve Spicklemire]

Hi Distutils folks,

I'm kind of a lurker here, due primarily to the fact that I'm too swamped with various other things to materially contribute to the effort, but I've been lurking for some time hoping to learn enough to avoid troubling anyone with pesky questions. In that respect I've apparently failed, because here comes the question!

Background: 

I'm helping out with a python package: vpython <http://vpython.org> and I'm also teaching an intro scientific computing class this spring. I'm mostly a Mac/Linux user, but my students are often windows users. I would love to permit my students to use enthought/canopy and/or continuum analytics (C.A.) along with vpython. At the moment we're creating binary releases of vpython for windows and mac and posting them on sourceforge <https://sourceforge.net/projects/vpythonwx/>. Bruce has been building the windows binary using VC (no setup.py) in a way that's compatible withpython.org python for windows. I've been building the mac version using a setup.py script I cobbled together that works on MacOSX and Linux. I've noticed that the anaconda system that C.A. installs uses MinGW on windows to build extensions. I'd love to figure out how to build vpython under this system so that my windows users could use them together transparently. (BTW is this the same 'anaconda' that has been discussed on this list recently, or is that something different?) I'm pretty sure I could work out how to build vpython with continuum analytics on the mac (which means building boost + wxPython using the C.A. python). 

Questions:

Is there any way, *today*, to incorporate dependencies on external libraries (e.g., boost) in setup.py?

(I've noticed the recent conversation about binary dependencies, but from the discussion it seemed to be mostly about the future...)

Where should I go to get the 'latest' advise/documentation on distribution for a package that I want to distribute today (rather than pestering you folks)?

thanks!
-steve

(P.S., I tried to send this earlier today, but it appears to have failed. Apologies if you've gotten this twice)

Steve Spicklemire
University of Indianapolis
Dept. of Physics and Earth Space Sciences
spicklemire at uindy.edu  (317) 788-3313