Help embedding python

[Zora Honey]

My husband and I are writing a program that does a lot of math behind 
the scenes (c++) with a gui front (python/Tkinter).  We've decided that 
we want the c++ to be the "driver", and so we want to embed the python. 
  We are not stupid people, and we've already searched this newsgroup 
and the web at large for help, but we're having a heck of a time trying 
to do this.

We're using Python 2.2 and Mark Lutz' "Programming Python" as a guide. 
Unfortunately, the code in there is a little out of date (loading 
certain libraries), and we haven't been able to get any examples to work 
(we even tried downloading the version he uses in the book, but it fails 
on the build).

So I'm wondering if someone out there has, or would be kind enough to 
create, a very simple ("hello world" type) program with Makefile that 
works under 2.2.

I will be very grateful, as it is my job to do the graphics, so if I 
can't get python working, I'll have to learn another language...

Thanks,
Zora