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

[Joseph Gilbert]

I agree with stivs in that downloading and installing python takes about  
as much effort as downloading and installing blender. It's been my  
experience that it's the PYTHONPATH that seems to confuse people to the  
extent that they have difficulties with python+blender (setting  
enviromental variables on windows was meant to be done automagically - not  
by hand). In the end, however, it doesn't take a lot of effort or know-how  
to get a default installation of python and a download of blender working  
together on windows.

But for whatever reason, there will always be people that dont want to (or  
cant for some reason) download python. Either they figure its for  
'development', or they just have no clue what it is. You read comments  
like "What's python?" on the artist forums all the time. Because we bundle  
scripts, AND we currently embeed the python interpreter, I don't think its  
unreasonable to expect that we provide the ability to have our bundled  
scripts run 'out of the box' at a minimum.

However, I think theeth's suggestion regarding a smart install of python  
might go a long way to solving python setup problems for unsophisticated  
end-users. Windows users could be asked if they would ALSO like to setup  
the correct python version with blender if the installer fails to detect  
the right version....

On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:12:30 -0500, Stephen Swaney  
<sswaney at centurytel.net> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> And no, we do not want to get into the business of providing a complete
> python installation package.  The folks at www.python.org do that just
> fine, thanks.
>



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