[PythonCE] How do you develop on the PocketPC?

[Luke Dunstan]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Heller" <theller at python.net>
To: <pythonce at python.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 2:32 AM
Subject: Re: [PythonCE] How do you develop on the PocketPC?


> We have three more or less complete and tested rapi modules.  I have to
> admit that after reading it I like Luke's module better than the
> TechGame one, although I found at least one error in it (CeCreateProcess
> must take a pointer to PROCESS_INFORMATION).

Note that PROCESS_INFORMATION contains an "_as_parameter_" property that
takes the address for you. I would agree to removing this though because it
may be more confusing than convenient.

> We have the script that I posted which implements the start of a remote
> Python interpreter.  I don't know what others think of it, but I find it
> pretty cool, it lets me try out code on the PDA without having to fiddle
> with this stick ;-).

I forgot to mention it earlier but I am actually using your script most of
the time instead of the default PythonCE shell :-).

> How should we proceed?
>
> Create a development environment for CE, based on ctypes?

I think everyone will have different ideas of what a "development 
environment for CE" should be, and a wiki page is probably a good way to 
collect the ideas. It would also be nice if an existing IDE or something 
could be modified and extended to allow remote development for Windows CE, 
because it would save a lot of time compared to creating it from scratch. 
Off the top of my head I would like an IDE with the following features:

- Remote interactive Python shell like the one you posted
- Source code editor with the usual features (to be elaborated later)
- Integrated remote debugger like winpdb
- GUI written in wxPython (this is just my preference and the reasons can be 
discussed later)
- Preferably doesn't require manual installation of device-side components 
apart from the standard PythonCE, i.e. it should install the rest 
automatically
- Perhaps an integrated remote display function like ActiveSync Remote 
Display or VNC, because this would be important for developing graphical 
Python apps for Windows CE

That should be enough to kick off discussion.

> Where should the repository be?

I think it should be part of the PythonCE project on SourceForge because I
imagine it would appeal to most users and because I think it is too small to
require a separate project at this stage.

> Who is interested in developing it?

I am interested in working on it but I will be going on holiday soon for 
around 3 weeks, so I won't be available immediately.

>
> And so on.
>
> For ctypes, wrapping the *complete* rapi functions would be an
> interesting experiment, also for automated code generation.  Large
> enough to be interesting, small enough to be ready in limited time.
>
> Thomas

Yes, it would be interesting and I may try it some time. So many ideas, so 
little time :-).

Luke