I really like Python but ....

[Alex Martelli]

"Bill Walker" <bwalker at earth1.net> wrote in message
news:th23t4g7qnet49 at corp.supernews.com...
    ...
> I'll accept even a decent byte-code compiler that locks up all the
modules,
> dlls, etc, into one exe. No, py2exe doesn't work well; especially with

Normal Windows technology does not support "locking up ... DLL's ...
into one exe".  There are some tricks that (sometimes) let you do
something similar, but they're not reliable -- tend to break any time
a new SP for some Win32 platform is released, and on several other
occasions.  .NET may change that (maybe).  In the meantime, the
state of the art on Windows is to distribute a self-unpacking, self-
installing file (either a .EXE or a .MSI) which, when run, basically
gets all the pieces out (into some kind of directory structure), writes
stuff to the registry, etc.  Any .ZIP of all needed files, with the typical
little layer to make it into a self-extracting .EXE (and maybe run a
setup program once unpacked) will do, though fancy GUI's etc are
no doubt best obtained via Wise, InstallShield, etc, etc.

> tkinter -- leaves out modules.

You mean some DLL's are NOT "locked up into one exe"?  Right -- see
above.  Not solidly feasible in today's Windows platforms.

> Without this capability it is just too hard to distribute code to any but

Funny, because distributing code "without this capability" is exactly
what firms developing for Win32 have been doing for so many years,
whatever language[s] they use.  And while .MSI (Microsoft Installer)
makes some things a bit easier (arranging everything so that a future
uninstall won't break anything, for example), Wise &c give a reasonably
capable programmer this ability since years ago.  Starting from the
file collection assembled by py2exe seems easier than starting from
what a typical VC++ development project leaves you with.


Alex