[PythonCE] The State of Affairs

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

On Thursday 10 July 2008, Alexandre Delattre wrote:
> Chris,
>
> > Also, if we are to encourage developers to build solutions that will
> > work on the PDA, I think distribution is a problem. The environment is
> > workable as a hacker, but if we want to simply the deployment and
> > actually ship applications, at this point it seems a bit complex. It
> > would be nice if there was a Py2App, or even, something along the
> > lines where the solution could be bundled into a directory (not as an
> > EXE, just as Python and your application files) for easy distribution.
>
> I do agree the distribution is problematic especially for end-users having
> no experience of python. The problem I see with a py2exe-like solution, is
> that if each application should hold ~4Mb (which is approximatively the
> size of python.dll+python.exe+standard library) this limits the number of
> apps you can install on a handheld device. 

> In my opinion, the separation of interpreter and source files is a more
> viable option on PDA, even if flash memory is getting cheaper and cheaper.

Further, it is a prerequisite in order to be able to change the sources, i.e. 
use it as scripting language. To me, that is more important than the ability 
to save a few MiBs RAM or Flash, but I'm also not targetting PDAs but  
industrial controllers.

> What I really like to start implementing is a web-based approach of
> programs distribution, a bit like apt-get on debian linux (with a graphical
> frontend of course) or like the Installer.app on jailbreaked iphones.
>
> This way it would allow us to search/install/uninstall python programs and
> libs from a common online source, in a few clicks, directly on
> pda/smartphone, or by transferring the package with traditional methods if
> the first option is not possible. Uploading new applications should be made
> easy too.

I'm not sure I would actually need or want that. Rather, I'd like to be able 
to cross-install (like cross-compile) it on the target machine. That would 
also be suitable for PDAs, which sometimes lack internet connection. Further, 
it would save on RAM, because all the metadata and the installer itself would 
run on a desktop machine.

> * Make a desktop application for easy cross installation of packages, when
> there's no direct web access on the pda. I've seen there are already
> existing RAPI bindings, this may help a lot, and seems the most 'universal'
> way to transfer files (i.e. by usb)

Okay, seems I'm not alone. ;)


I have another question concerning the state of affairs though: why is the CE 
port a separate project? All other ports to various operating systems seem to 
be one project while the CE port is run separately. This is bad because it 
requires additional manpower for syncing changes back and forth and a 
win32/CE port present in the main sources would also make people aware of 
this when doing changes so they don't break things by being unaware.


cheers

Uli


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