[IPython-dev] 0.9 Windows installer still not working for me!?!?

[Brian Granger]

> Yes, that stuff is *very old*, from back when we only had the main
> ipython terminal, with at most one or two profiles.  It hasn't really
> been updated for the new codebase where we want proper terminal-based
> script support even under windows, I'm afraid.

OK.  That makes sense then.  I guess Win32 users have always just
started ipython from the start Menu?  Ouch.

> Sorry not to have a better solution to offer right now.  Perhaps for
> win32 we should just recommend the egg?  When I wrote that installer,
> setuptools didn't even exist, so it wasn't an option, but maybe now we
> can go that route for win32, I don't know...

Not your fault that distutils sucks.

> I certainly lack the knowledge for how to create all the .exe entry
> points in windows myself...

Me too.  The only thing I know how to do would be to copy what another
project does (like Twisted) and see if that works.

Here are the options as I see it:

1.  We simply get rid of this bad code and stop shipping Win32 .exe
installers.  Instead people can easy_install the egg or just python
setup.py install it.  If we go this route, we should really get rid of
the post install scripts as they will simply confuse people.

2.  Someone who cares about an .exe installer and who knows how to
handle the post install stuff properly steps in and fixes all of this
before the release.

Note:  it is not an option to simply leave the post install script as
it is for the release.  It leaves much of IPython completely unsuable
from Win32.

Opinions on this?  We don't have much time left on this...

Cheers,

Brian

> Cheers,
>
> f
>