[Python-Dev] Single-file Python executables (was: Computed Goto dispatch for Python 2)
Steven D'Aprano
steve at pearwood.info
Fri May 29 10:36:02 CEST 2015
On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 01:20:06PM -0400, Donald Stufft wrote:
> I think it’s an issue for all platforms, even when there is a system Python
> that can be used.
>
> Here’s why:
>
> * Even on Linux systems Python isn’t always a guaranteed thing to be installed,
> for instance Debian works just fine without any Python installed.
Donald, are you a Linux user? If so, which distro? Because in the Linux
world that I'm familiar with, this (and the points you make below) are
absolutely not an issue. You let the package manager worry about
dependencies:
yum install myapp # Red Hat based distros
apt-get install myapp # Debian based distros
will ensure that the right version of Python is installed.
In the circles I move in, installing anything which does not go through
the package manager is considered to be quite dubious. In order of
preference (best to worst):
- install from official distro repositories;
- install from a third-party repo;
- install from source;
- find an alternative application;
- do without;
- install from some binary format (also known as "would you like
a root kit with that?").
[...]
> * Even if you have Python installed already, is it the right one? What if it’s
> an ancient RHEL box that has 2.6 or (heaven forbid) 2.4? What if it’s a not
> ancient box that has Python 2.7 but you want to deploy your app in Python 3?
Most recent distros have both a python2 and python3 package, and when
building your rpm or deb file, you specify which is your dependency in
the normal fashion.
> * What if you have Python installed already, but it’s been patched by the place
> you got it from and now the behavior is different than what you expected?
Normally you would write for the version of Python provided by the
distros you wish to support. In practice that might mean writing hybrid
code targetting (say) 2.6 and 2.7, which covers most recent Red Hat and
Debian based systems, and anything else, you provide the source code and
let the user work it out.
I suppose that in principle you could include whatever version of Python
you like *in your application*, but that would be considered an unusual
thing to do. I believe that LibreOffice and OpenOffice do that, so they
can support Python as a scripting language, but they're generally
considered (1) a special case because they're cross-platform, and (2)
not "proper" Unix or Linux apps anyway.
The point is, in the Linux circles I move in, this idea of single file
installation would be about as popular as a police raid at a rave club.
Maybe you move in different circles (perhaps more enterprisey?), but I
can already imagine the sort of derogatory comments the sys admins I
work with would make about this idea.
--
Steve
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