Re: [OT] advice on distributing for different OSs

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:49 PM, DavidWorrall <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've been developing in Python on Mac's since b4 OSX and I have to give a
> workshop on the other side of the world in a (networked) non-OSX university
> lab (Windows, I think).
>
> Now I know dependencies are one of python's strengths,

no, it's not! I think dependencies are still kind of a nightmare with
Python. pip and pypi do a pretty good job with pure-python packages,
and an OK job with compiled-with-no-other-dependencies packages, but
packages that have other dependencies are a pain - python provides no
support whatsoever for that.

 > it got me to wondering if there are some angels out there
> who support a downloadable collection of useful tools for various versions
> that python on OSX, Linux and Windows OSs that members of this group would
> recommend.

Christoph Golke is one such angel for Windows, and Pyton(x,y) and
PyWin (or something like that) are other all-in-0ne free distributions
for Windows. Nothing that I know of (free and open) for the Mac --
hence my note -- maybe you'd like to help build one?

> 2.7.x seems the most viable Python. My orientation is scientific with an
> added emphasis on sound.
>
> I've looked at Enthought's offerings, for example. They seem pretty slick,
> but don't know what corporate "dependencies" I might be inadvertently
> "buying" into in adopting their builds.

Enthought or Anaconda are the two commercial offerings I know of. And
they are pretty good options, actually.

I don't know the downsides. For y part, I dn't use them, but maybe I
should. A few years back I tried Enthought when I needed to get some
Windows boxes up and running quickly. IN that case, I found that EPD
installs and is configured for MinGW, rather than the MS compiler --
and, it turns out, didn't work for compiling some custom extensions I
needed. Honestly, when it barfed on me, I dropped it and moved on,
without hardly any debugging time -- so it may have been a trivail
fix.

So the only issue I know if is that EPD used MinGW, rather than the MS
compiler -- don't know if that's a problem, though. I suspect Anaconda
os the same.

> Any thoughts/recommendations- or suggestions of a more appropriate forum to
> ask this - would be much appreciated.

with your science focus, you may try the scipy list, or the scientific
python LinedIn discussion group. But for Mac-focuses questions, this
is a good one.

-Chris



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