Why Activestate Python ?

[Fuzzyman]

Again... a silly newbie question which might have an obvious
answer.... but *why* is their an alternative distribution of python by
activestate ?

Apart fromt he fact that they bundle Mark Hammond's Windows Extensions
with it (in the windows version) - what is to be gained from using
their distributio instead of the 'normal' one ?

Regards,


Fuzzy

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html

 

[Andrei]

Fuzzyman wrote on 9 Apr 2004 01:25:45 -0700:

Again... a silly newbie question which might have an obvious
answer.... but *why* is their an alternative distribution of python by
activestate ?

Apart fromt he fact that they bundle Mark Hammond's Windows Extensions
with it (in the windows version) - what is to be gained from using
their distributio instead of the 'normal' one ?

You also get PythonWin and nice docs. Python might have good HTMLHelp
format docs by now as well, but last time I tried, there were many broken
things in it. At some point I was running an official Py2.3<something>
because ActiveState was a bit slow in releasing a 2.3 version, but I
continued to use the docs from ActiveState Py 2.2.X. Now I have their 2.3.2
distribution installed.

Apart from that, it's Python. Depending on what your usage pattern is, you
might not even notice what you have on your HD.

--
Yours,

Andrei

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gur yvfg, fb gurer'f ab arrq gb PP.

 

[simo]

It's a bloody site easier to install on Solaris if you don't have root
access.

Unfortunately, the same doesn't seem to go for Windows - the official
one seems easier to install without Admin access.

 

[asdf sdf]

Again... a silly newbie question which might have an obvious
answer.... but *why* is their an alternative distribution of python by
activestate ?

Apart fromt he fact that they bundle Mark Hammond's Windows Extensions
with it (in the windows version) - what is to be gained from using
their distributio instead of the 'normal' one ?

Regards,


Fuzzy

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html

i think there is an impression generally that Win32 is a harder build
platform for OSS projects than Linux-Unix. Very unscientifically, I
think my reading of message boards supports that, at least for Apache,
Python, and their related modules.

I've never tried to build it myself.

The activestate distribution includes Help files in compiled html
format. Which I do not prefer. I just download the doc of interest
from the python site.

 

[Fuzzyman]

[snip..]

i think there is an impression generally that Win32 is a harder build
platform for OSS projects than Linux-Unix. Very unscientifically, I
think my reading of message boards supports that, at least for Apache,
Python, and their related modules.

I've never tried to build it myself.

The activestate distribution includes Help files in compiled html
format. Which I do not prefer. I just download the doc of interest
from the python site.

The 'official' version also has docs in 'chm' format... which I
personally find fine (particularly not having internet at home).

Regards,


Fuzzy

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html

 

[bobb]

[snip..]

i think there is an impression generally that Win32 is a harder build
platform for OSS projects than Linux-Unix. Very unscientifically, I
think my reading of message boards supports that, at least for Apache,
Python, and their related modules.

I've never tried to build it myself.

The activestate distribution includes Help files in compiled html
format. Which I do not prefer. I just download the doc of interest
from the python site.

The 'official' version also has docs in 'chm' format... which I
personally find fine (particularly not having internet at home).

I have a heck of time with searching through the chm file w/ it , though.
(too many results).

 

[Cameron Laird]

Fuzzyman wrote on 9 Apr 2004 01:25:45 -0700:


You also get PythonWin and nice docs. Python might have good HTMLHelp
format docs by now as well, but last time I tried, there were many broken
things in it. At some point I was running an official Py2.3<something>
because ActiveState was a bit slow in releasing a 2.3 version, but I
continued to use the docs from ActiveState Py 2.2.X. Now I have their 2.3.2
distribution installed.

Apart from that, it's Python. Depending on what your usage pattern is, you
might not even notice what you have on your HD.

.
.
.
I'm not sure what kind of an answer the original questioner is
after. It's a fact, though, that some organizations (still!)
only understand "commercial" products. Developers and admini-
strators in such organizations simply are allowed no access to
standard Python; they're able to get on with their work only
because of the availability of ActiveState Python.

 

[Daniel Dittmar]

after. It's a fact, though, that some organizations (still!)
only understand "commercial" products. Developers and admini-

I suspect it's rather
- ActiveState wants to sell support for Python
- they only want to support specific releases and packages: those they built
and tested themselves

Daniel