[Python-Dev] Python startup time

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Thu May 3 00:01:10 EDT 2018


On 5/2/2018 12:42 PM, Gregory Szorc wrote:

> I know this kinda/sorta exists with zipimporter. But zipimporter uses 
> zlib (slow) and only allows .py/.pyc files. And I think some Python 
> application distribution tools have also solved this problem. I'd 
> *really* like to see a proper/robust solution in Python itself. Along 
> that vein, it would be really nice if the "standalone Python 
> application" story were a bit more formalized. From my perspective, it 
> is insanely difficult to package and distribute an application that 
> happens to use Python. It requires vastly different solutions for 
> different platforms. I want to declare a minimal boilerplate somewhere 
> (perhaps in setup.py) and run a command that produces an 
> as-self-contained-as-possible application complete with platform-native 
> installers.

I few years ago I helped my wife create a tutorial in the Renpy visual 
storytelling engine.  It is free and open source.
https://www.renpy.org
It is written in Python, while users write scripts in both Python and a 
custom scripting language.

When we were done, we pressed a button and it generated self-contained 
zip files for Windows, Linux, and Mac.  This can  be done from any of 
the three platforms.  After we tested all three files, she created a web 
page with links to the three files for download.  There have been no 
complaints so far. Perhaps the file generators could be adapted to 
packaging a project directory into a self-contained app.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy



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