Just Getting Started with Python on MS XP Pro

[W. Watson]

What do I download to use Python with MX XP Pro on an ASUS 4 year old
motherboard? I would guess a good book source for starters would be the
O'Reilly book.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[Laszlo Nagy]

What do I download to use Python with MX XP Pro on an ASUS 4 year old
motherboard? I would guess a good book source for starters would be the
O'Reilly book.

You mean Microsoft XP Pro?

For a beginner, the motherboard does not really matter. First of all,
you should download Python itself:

http://www.python.org/download/

or more probably:

http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5/python-2.5.msi

Then you should download a good editor. There are many, listed here:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors
Under Windows, for a beginner, I would recommend pythonwin, but you can
decide.

Finally, you can start practicing. A book is always good. You can read
online tutorials too:

http://docs.python.org/tut/
http://www.awaretek.com/tutorials.html


Regards,

Laszlo

 

[DouhetSukd]

Wise choice + welcome to the club.

Though Python is open source and well appreciated on Linux, I think you
will find that most people in this newsgroup will be fairly courteous
about _your_ choice of platform. Some will not know about the weird
process forking stuff on windows and helpfully suggest that 'if you
were to use a real OS...'. But in reality Python is just as happy on
XP as on Linux and the lack of scripting/shell alternatives on XP makes
it all the more useful there.

The only real XP drawback is that Python is not bundled on Windows,
while it is included with OS X and most (all?) Linux distros.

So, giving a *.py program to another XP user means little by itself, it
needs to be either packaged in an exe (see py2exe) or you need to get
your buddy to install python on their machine.


In descending order of cheapness/usefullness.

1. download python + work through the tutorial. well, maybe not all
of it, but with pythonwin around, you can try out significant snippets
quickly.


2. use any ol' text editor that _you_ are familiar with, save to file,
and python <file> under DOS. later on you can always pick an editor.
i prefer eclipse + pydev, yes, even on windows.

personally, i find pythonwin _great_ to test out code interactively,
mediocre to write lots of code with and occasionally handy to debug
code in.

if you hate typing python <file> under DOS, then I guess you will have
to run programs from pythonwin.


3. internet

this newsgroup is very informative.

dive into python, pretty good net resource

www.diveintopython.org



4. books:

Learning Python, isbn 0596002815, is pretty good.

Python Programming on Win32, isbn 1565926218, is good, if a bit dated
(2000, covers COM but no .Net)

In depth Python - Python in a Nutshell, isbn 0596100469


5. GUI stuff.

wxPython. If, like me, you hate handcoding everything and want a VB
drag&drop clone you will have to look around for someone else's advice
- there are several such editors that do wxPython but I have never
found anything entirely to my liking. I am sure others will chime in
with their recommendations.


6. Database stuff.

Personally, working on MS SQL, I vouch for mxODBC - shareware, which I
used for years without paying, until I decided the guy had definitely
earned my $75.

http://www.egenix.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html


7. Prepping *.py programs for distribution to users w.o. Python

py2exe - www.py2exe.org/

Best o' luck.

 

[Grant Edwards]

The only real XP drawback is that Python is not bundled on
Windows, while it is included with OS X and most (all?) Linux
distros.

While it's true that Microsoft doesn't bundle Python with
Windows, a _lot_ of XP computers do come with Python installed.
My IBM ThinkPad came out of the box with Python installed. I've
read that a few other large PC vendors (HP/Compaq?) also ship
Python pre-installed on their machines.

However, it's not usually installed in a manner that makes it
conveniently usable by the end-user...

 

[W. Watson]

You mean Microsoft XP Pro?

For a beginner, the motherboard does not really matter. First of all,
you should download Python itself:

http://www.python.org/download/

or more probably:

http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5/python-2.5.msi

Then you should download a good editor. There are many, listed here:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors
Under Windows, for a beginner, I would recommend pythonwin, but you can
decide.

Finally, you can start practicing. A book is always good. You can read
online tutorials too:

http://docs.python.org/tut/
http://www.awaretek.com/tutorials.html


Regards,

Laszlo

Many thanks. I've been impressed lately what one finds in Wikipedia. The
first such occurrence was when I find all the release dates for a photo
software package that I use. Not even the mfger had that!


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[W. Watson]

Ah, I misread wiki as wikpedia. Nevertheless, wikipedia surprises me, as
well as just wiki sites.

 

[W. Watson]

The wiki site lead to a link to download pythonwin, but the download is
broken. Googling invariably leads back to that link. I found
<http://www.python.org/download/releases/binaries-1.4/pythonwin/>, which has
two files listed: oadist.exe and win32dbg.exe. Do I need both or is just the
latter one?


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[Thomas Ploch]

The wiki site lead to a link to download pythonwin, but the download is
broken. Googling invariably leads back to that link. I found
<http://www.python.org/download/releases/binaries-1.4/pythonwin/>, which has
two files listed: oadist.exe and win32dbg.exe. Do I need both or is just the
latter one?

A google query 'pythonwin' directly brings me here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/

I think this is the place to go

Thomas

 

[rzed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

Wise choice + welcome to the club.
Seconded.

The only real XP drawback is that Python is not bundled on
Windows, while it is included with OS X and most (all?) Linux
distros.

My computer does, in fact, include a Python 2.2.1 installation,
which the manufacturer uses internally.

2. use any ol' text editor that _you_ are familiar with, save
to file, and python <file> under DOS. later on you can always
pick an editor. i prefer eclipse + pydev, yes, even on windows.

personally, i find pythonwin _great_ to test out code
interactively, mediocre to write lots of code with and
occasionally handy to debug code in.

if you hate typing python <file> under DOS, then I guess you
will have to run programs from pythonwin.

Not so, but it takes a little setup. If I want to run a Python
program named, say, "fixthis.py", I can invoke it by typing
"fixthis.py" at the command-line prompt (if I'm running cmd.exe),
or by clicking the icon in Windows Explorer. To make the command-
line option work, I have to have file associations set so that .py
files open with python (and .pyw files open with pythonw, for that
matter). I *think* this is done at install time, though I may have
done that separately.

There is also an environment variable called "pathext", which is
just a list of extensions the system recognizes as being
executable in some way. if you add .py and .pyw to that list, then
all you have to type at the command line is "fixthis" to get that
Python program to run.

I note that I have had my Python root and Python/Scripts directory
on my path at times. There may be some packages that require these
things, but what I talked about in the previous two paragraphs
doesn't require pythonpath to be set specially.

(Fiddling around) Ah! If you want to invoke the interactive python
shell, you will probably want to add the root location to your
path, so you can type

python .... to invoke it, rather than
c:\python25\python

.... and something similar may be true for the Scripts
subdirectory.

 

[W. Watson]

A google query 'pythonwin' directly brings me here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/

I think this is the place to go

Thomas

That gets me the python program (pywin), which I got from a URL in a post
above (python-win.msi). I guess these are the same or at least just the
interpreter, and do not provide the IDE-debugger. I can't get pythonwin, the
debugger and IDE. The link was broken last night when I tried it. Well, let
me try now. Nope, it still reports "Error 404: File Not Found"




Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[Jussi Salmela]

W. Watson kirjoitti:

Thomas Ploch wrote:
That gets me the python program (pywin), which I got from a URL in a
post above (python-win.msi). I guess these are the same or at least just
the interpreter, and do not provide the IDE-debugger. I can't get
pythonwin, the debugger and IDE. The link was broken last night when I
tried it. Well, let me try now. Nope, it still reports "Error 404: File
Not Found"

I don't understand your difficulties. If you've got Python installed and
want to install the "Python for Windows extensions" aka pywin32, the
above link is the way to go.

Clicking it gets you to a Sourceforge page, where you can click
"download" which gets you to ap page where you can choose which version
of pywin32 build 210 you want. Choose the exe that was built for the
Python version (e.g. 2.5) you are using, download and run it to install
pywin32.

HTH,
Jussi

 

[W. Watson]

W. Watson kirjoitti:


I don't understand your difficulties. If you've got Python installed and
want to install the "Python for Windows extensions" aka pywin32, the
above link is the way to go.

Clicking it gets you to a Sourceforge page, where you can click
"download" which gets you to ap page where you can choose which version
of pywin32 build 210 you want. Choose the exe that was built for the
Python version (e.g. 2.5) you are using, download and run it to install
pywin32.

HTH,
Jussi

As I understand it, there are two files I'm after: 1. python interpreter,
and 2. a python editor. It's #2 that I'm having trouble downloading. The
link is broken.


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[Thomas Ploch]

As I understand it, there are two files I'm after: 1. python interpreter,
and 2. a python editor. It's #2 that I'm having trouble downloading. The
link is broken.

This is the python interpreter for windows:

http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5/python-2.5.msi


Here you can check for editors:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors


Here you will get the pywin32 package (also including the Win32 API, COM
support, and Pythonwin):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/

I am not sure if you actually read any of our posts, because there is no
404 whatsoever. On none of the posted links in the whole thread.

Thomas

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

As I understand it, there are two files I'm after: 1. python interpreter,
and 2. a python editor. It's #2 that I'm having trouble downloading. The
link is broken.

The above link should work. Follow the instructions in a previous post.
Note that in the last step, you have to choose a mirror for
downloading; that mirrow might be down or out-of-sync so you might get
an error there. Choose another mirrorr...

Note that you dont *need* PythonWin in order to use Python on Windows.
The standard Python distribution works fine. Even includes a Python
editor (IDLE) but you can use whichever editor you like to write your
code (even Notepad...)

 

[W. Watson]

The above link should work. Follow the instructions in a previous post.
Note that in the last step, you have to choose a mirror for
downloading; that mirrow might be down or out-of-sync so you might get
an error there. Choose another mirrorr...

Note that you dont *need* PythonWin in order to use Python on Windows.
The standard Python distribution works fine. Even includes a Python
editor (IDLE) but you can use whichever editor you like to write your
code (even Notepad...)

We seem to be looping. I have the Python interpreter. I would like the
pythonwin editor. The download link doesn't work on SourceForge. Where can I
get it? If not there, where? If it can't be obtained, then I'll go to the
default editor built into python-2.5.msi.


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

We seem to be looping. I have the Python interpreter. I would like the
pythonwin editor. The download link doesn't work on SourceForge. Where can I
get it? If not there, where? If it can't be obtained, then I'll go to the
default editor built into python-2.5.msi.

It *does* work for me. Try
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=78018&package_id=79063

 

[Jussi Salmela]

W. Watson kirjoitti:

We seem to be looping. I have the Python interpreter. I would like the
pythonwin editor. The download link doesn't work on SourceForge. Where
can I get it? If not there, where? If it can't be obtained, then I'll go
to the default editor built into python-2.5.msi.


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

""I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions
and billions of years before I was born, and had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
-- Mark Twain (a nod to evolution)

Trying to break the loop:

The above link works for me. I've tried it numerous times during this
looping. Clicking the link pops up a security warning informing that the
browser is going to enter "https mode". Do you get that pop-up?

When I accept the pop-up, I get a page containing a green rectangle
"button". When I click it, I get another page in which I have to click
download to go to the actual download page.

If this doesn't work for you there must be something wrong with your
configuration.

HTH,
Jussi

 

[W. Watson]

It *does* work for me. Try
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=78018&package_id=79063

I can easily see the page you refer to, but where's the pythonwin editor?


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

A road sign along many highways reads, "$1000
fine for littering" I have yet to find any
$1000 bills. WTW

 

[Jussi Salmela]

W. Watson kirjoitti:

I can easily see the page you refer to, but where's the pythonwin editor?


Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

A road sign along many highways reads, "$1000
fine for littering" I have yet to find any
$1000 bills. WTW

The editor is only a part of pywin32, which is a handy package to do all
kinds of Windows only stuff with Python. So download and install pywin32
to get the editor and all that other nice stuff.

HTH,
Jussi