bootstrapping on machines without Python

[Jonathan Hartley]

On Nov 13, 10:25 pm, mma... at gmx.net wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:40:28 -0800 (PST)
>
> Jonathan Hartley <tart... at tartley.com> wrote:
> > Even my very limited understanding of the issues is enough to see that
> > the idea is far from trivial.


Thanks heaps for the input from everyone. Martin Lemburg's 'chained'
approach does sound like the smart way to do it, and Thomas does
demonstrate pretty much the simplest possible example of what I'm
thinking of. Martin Manns' portable Python sounds useful too, and is
not disimilar to a suggestion made by Michael Foord off list.

However, the problems that Tim, Martin, Marc and Martin point out do
seem very real. I think users could be placated about 'backdoor
installation' if we tell them what's going on, with an OK button. But
I confess I wasn't aware that a full Python install is quite so large
compared to the bundle produced by py2exe et al.

Perhaps this idea is overly idealistic then - I was maybe transfixed
by the 'needless consistency' of sharing a single interpreter between
many applications.

Thanks for helping me straighten out my thoughts on the subject.

Best!

  Jonathan