[Bf-python] A python25.zip file is needed for the current CVS

Thu Mar 1 02:02:01 CET 2007

I'm throwing ideas in the air a bit, but can't the
windows installer (ours) check for a python install
and, if one isn't available, download the installer
(Python's) and run it?

For a couple of release now, the Python installer has
been really simple (no messing with paths and all), so
that should do the job.

If the installer can't download, it could at least
provide a link to the proper download page.

If that works:
- Users don't need to "hunt" for the mystic Python
- Users don't have to worry about what version to
download, it's spoon fed to them
- We can even do version checks and what if the wrong
version of Python is installed (and then offer a
different version of Blender, if we build for
different Py versions or offer a link to the correct
Python version).

Frankly, I think shipping a small subset of the python
libs is a half baked solution, because then, if they
need to use scripts that require other modules, it's
back to square one and it often doesn't go forward
from there...

Martin

--- Matt Ebb <matt at mke3.net> wrote:

> 
> On 01/03/2007, at 11:12 AM, Stephen Swaney wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 09:40:38AM +1100, Matt Ebb
> wrote:
> >>
> >> For an artist to download Blender and by default
> not be able to
> >> import or export anything would be an enormous
> turn-off and point of
> >> confusion. These days I think we should be doing
> as much as we can to
> >> encourage interoperability and make it easier for
> people to include
> >> Blender in their pipelines. We shouldn't be
> making this harder.
> >
> >
> > The burden of installing python is similar to the
> effort of installing
> > blender.  If they can manage to find, download and
> install blender,  
> > they
> > should be able to manage python.  For those who
> find google  
> > problematic
> > for finding things, we can provide a download link
> to www.python.org.
> 
> It's not that similar, and it's additional when we
> should be making  
> things easier. People go to the Blender website to
> download Blender,  
> because that's what they've heard about and that's
> what they want to  
> use. And regardless of all the warnings and notices
> we put there,  
> people won't read them. Artists will read messages
> like "to enable  
> scripting you must download python", their eyes will
> glaze over and  
> they will click on the nice icon to download
> Blender.
> 
> And I think that's quite expectable. Most artists
> are not used to the  
> Linux world of having to satisfy all sorts of
> dependencies just to  
> get working in their app. Most artists don't have
> the faintest idea  
> what libraries or scripting interpreters are and
> shouldn't need to.  
> It's a very reasonable expectation of people that
> they should be able  
> to download the application from the website, and it
> should just work.
> 
> Also, I'm not a Windows user myself so I don't know
> how this works,  
> but it seems reasonable that forcing people to
> install Python can  
> cause problems at businesses or schools where people
> don't have  
> administrator access.
> 
> In any case, regardless of whether some people may
> be capable of  
> doing it or not, it is adding more steps and more
> burdens in the way  
> of getting started with Blender, and this is a bad
> thing in and of  
> itself, when we should be finding ways to remove
> burdens.
> 
> > Right now, we provide windozers with a half-assed
> version of python  
> > - the
> > bare minimum needed to run our distributed
> scripts.  Third-party  
> > scripts
> > may not run due to missing modules.  If the
> artists start learning  
> > python
> > on their own, they may run into the missing module
> problem.  This  
> > seems
> > much more confusing than having to download and
> install something.
> 
> There are far, far, more people using basic
> functionality such as  
> import and export than there are writing their own
> scripts. Decisions  
> on who to support and provide with ease of use
> should be weighted  
> accordingly.
> 
> And it's not more confusing to find missing modules.
> By the time that  
> someone is at the stage of writing Python scripts in
> Blender that  
> depend on modules outside of the Blender module and
> outside of the  
> bundled ones, they're far higher up the learning
> curve and far better  
> prepared to deal with issues like installing extra
> packages. I've  
> been using Blender for 5 years, am a committer to
> CVS ferchrissakes  
> and I've never needed to use an extra module other
> than 'math'.
> 
> Especially for people coming from other packages who
> want to evaluate  
> Blender and get into it, import and export are some
> of the very first  
> things that they will be doing. Hitting them with
> such a bump in the  
> learning curve so early on is far worse in
> comparison. It's  
> especially bad if it ends up with the importers will
> appearing in the  
> menu but just not working, in which case it'll look
> like Blender is  
> just crappy and doesn't work. I think these are the
> people we should  
> be trying to encourage, not make life more difficult
> for them.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Matt
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------
> Matt Ebb . matt at mke3.net . http://mke3.net0
> 
> 
> 
> > _______________________________________________
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> Bf-python at projects.blender.org
>
http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-python
> 

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