Distributing applications

[Phillip Mills]

I've learned enough of the Python language to be mildly dangerous and
have used it in a few personal projects. All my development of
commercial (or production) products over the past dozen years have been
done with C++ or Java.

For a program I'm planning -- to begin during the summer -- having an
interpreter as part of the application would be very desirable to allow
sophisticated users to provide their own extensions. Java would be
do-able, but....

My problems are:
- I'd like the process of installing the application to be one step;
no "first download a Python interpreter then a GUI library" kind of
thing.
- I also need the core part of the application to be reasonably
protected. I'm not looking to defeat hackers, but something equivalent
to the way Java's class files stored in jars stay where they're supposed
to be and aren't immediately readable.

I've looked at various web sites for this topic, but most I've found are
just arguments for using the Python language. OK, I'll pretend I'm
convinced...now any comments or references on the mechanics of creating
a self-contained distribution?

--
Phillip Mills
Multi-platform software development
[phone]

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[Thomas Heller]

"Serge Orlov" <Se*********@gm ail.com> writes:

Jaime Wyant wrote:

This becomes especially hairy when someone is updating from 1.0 to
say 1.5. Then I have to keep track of all the deltas between
1.0/1.5. My way is much simpler because I don't have to keep up with
*anything*. As long as I test my code against my custom built
distribution, it ought to JUST WORK.

I don't trust myself to keep up with anything ;).

Now I follow you :) I agree that updating py2exe apps requires package
management utilities. I don't think they will be messy, it's just
more code to maintain compared to your way. You only need to track
one delta (1.0 -> 1.1 ... -> latest) and publish two files latest.exe
and update.zip

Sometimes I think that CVS or SVN may be the simplest solution to update
applications. Install a client on the target computer, it may be
invisible to the user, copy the CVS or SVN directories, and provide a
script the does (also invisible) 'cvs up -r version_a_b'.

Thomas

[Jaime Wyant]

Sneaky! I like it. Now if there was only a subversion python module...

jw

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:08:45 +0100, Thomas Heller <th*****@python .net> wrote:

"Serge Orlov" <Se*********@gm ail.com> writes:

Jaime Wyant wrote:

This becomes especially hairy when someone is updating from 1.0 to
say 1.5. Then I have to keep track of all the deltas between
1.0/1.5. My way is much simpler because I don't have to keep up with
*anything*. As long as I test my code against my custom built
distribution, it ought to JUST WORK.

I don't trust myself to keep up with anything ;).

Now I follow you :) I agree that updating py2exe apps requires package
management utilities. I don't think they will be messy, it's just
more code to maintain compared to your way. You only need to track
one delta (1.0 -> 1.1 ... -> latest) and publish two files latest.exe
and update.zip

Sometimes I think that CVS or SVN may be the simplest solution to update
applications. Install a client on the target computer, it may be
invisible to the user, copy the CVS or SVN directories, and provide a
script the does (also invisible) 'cvs up -r version_a_b'.

Thomas
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

[Tim Jarman]

Jaime Wyant wrote:

Sneaky! I like it. Now if there was only a subversion python module...

jw

GIYF: http://pysvn.tigris.org/
--
Website: www DOT jarmania FULLSTOP com

[Robert Kern]

Jaime Wyant wrote:

Sneaky! I like it. Now if there was only a subversion python module...

Google, and you shall find.

--
Robert Kern
rk***@ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

[Stephen Thorne]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 13:07:25 -0600, Jaime Wyant <pr***********@ gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>

However, if you have an idea on updating py2exe bundled apps, I'm all ears...

I'm working on a little project that requires remote updating. What I
basically came up with is two nested applications.

program/program.exe runs, and checks program/realprogram/ for updates
from a server. if md5s mismatch, it pulls new versions. after pulling
new version, it runs the program/realprogram.exe

realprogram.exe can, at some point in the future, be written to update
program/program.exe's code.

This isn't exactly the way I ended up doing it, due to the application
(all on a LAN, not the internet) I'm actually pulling the 'real'
program every time and leaving it in a directory under
tempfile.gettem pdir()

Its a bit messy, but it actually works on both windows and linux.
(cx_Freeze under linux)

Stephen.