Beginner advice

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:23:00 +0200, Paul Scott wrote:

> 3. pyXMLRPClib - active? Something better?

There is an `xmlrpclib` in the standard library, so there is no need for
an external package here.  I even think that pyXMLRPClib is the one that's
integrated in the standard library, so the external one might be "dead".

> 4. I see that there are literally thousands of somewhat external looking
> libraries for python, I presume that there is some way of bundling all
> the deps into a single source and then compiling? or otherwise packaging
> them all (this software will be for academia, so difficult installs are
> out!)

For Windows there are tools to bundle your source and all dependencies and
even the interpreter itself.  `py2exe` is such a tool.  With InnoSetup or
NSIS or similar programs you can then make a `setup.exe` for that spoiled
Windows brats.  :-)

Under Linux many packages are available as distribution specific packages
on most distributions.  So for Linux you may get away with a README
stating the dependencies of your program and a `setup.py` for installing
your project.  Look for `distutils` in the Python documentation for
further information about `setup.py`\s.

> 5. Editor - I am using Eric (which I quite like), any advice on IDE's?

Use the one you like best.  ;-)

Many don't use an IDE but simply their favorite text editor.  I'm happy
with syntax highlighting, automatic indentation support for Python source
code, and completion based on the content of open file(s) -- almost all
serious editors have those features.

And there's always an IPython console running to test small pieces of code.

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Hey, that's a nice way to have a *short* stupid disclaimer.  :-)

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch