"Chris Mellon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Nov 20, 2007 2:43 PM, John J. Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> "Chris Mellon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> [...] >> > These modules exist, but aren't that common. Certainly anything you're >> > likely to be using in an introductory compsci course is well packaged. >> > And even if it's not, it's really not that hard to create packages or >> > installers - a days work of course prep would take care of the >> > potential problem. >> >> "A day's worth of course prep" for beginners would let them debug all >> the crap that building MySQLdb on Windows might throw at them, for >> example? I think not! (MySQLdb, last time I looked, was one of the >> not-so-obscure modules that don't have a Windows installer available >> and kept up to date. Maybe it does now, but that's not really the >> point.) >> > > A days worth of course prep would allow the professor (or his TA, more > likely) to produce a set of installers that's suitable for use with > the course. This is a comp sci course, not a "how to sysadmin a Python > installation" course.
Ah, sorry, misread what you wrote. I made the same point in my next paragraph, so perhaps the misunderstanding's mutual :-) > For the record, it took me less than 3 minutes to install MySqldb, the > first time I've ever needed to do it - I don't like or approve of > MySql. Steps required: Google for "mysql python" and click through 3 > or 4 links to the SF download page. Download the binary installer, > from March 2007. Not exactly rocket science. That's great, though I don't see the connection with what I wrote. Within the last year or so (IIRC) a MySQLdb Windows installer was not available. And ISTR grumpy noises coming from the corner of the ReportLab office where AFAIK the only Windows binary publically available shortly thereafter was built -- albeit an unofficial, unsupported binary. So I guess the fact that the MySQLdb maintainer wasn't (isn't?) a Windows user didn't make the build process silky- smooth ;-) My point was that it's by no means unheard of for popular Python modules to be unavailable as Windows binary installers. > On a similar note, I have or create executable installers for all the > third party modules I use, because I need to provide them to the > people who do our deployments. This has never been much of a burden. [...] That's nice too. Other people have not found it so easy. OTOH, ISTR that current MinGW / MSYS / Python / distutils make it easier for people who don't have the appropriate MS compiler, so perhaps the situation has improved over the last 12 months... John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list