[SciPy-dev] Python (Enthought Edition) for Windows test release

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

Hi Joe,

>>>>> "Joe" == Joe Cooper <joe at enthought.com> writes:

    Joe> Hi all, The much anticipated new release of the Enthought
    Joe> Edition of Python (a.k.a. Enthon) is just about ready for
    Joe> release into the real world.  I'd like for some of you brave
    Joe> developer-type folks to give it a go before I announce it more
    Joe> widely and link it from the Enthon home page.

I finally had the chance to install this under WinXP.  The installer
is excellent!  Many thanks for the effort!  Some comments:

 1. I suspect you are still using MayaVi-1.3.  This version has a
    buggy volume module.  The CVS snapshot is available here 

     http://vvikram.com/~prabhu/download/mayavi/MayaVi-1.3.cvs20040814.zip

    I recommend using this instead because it supports time series,
    incorporates serious bug fixes and also supports user
    module/filter directories.  

    I'll try and make a 1.4 release sometime soon so this is easier,
    but if its not a hassle would appreciate if you could use the
    above snapshot till then.  Thanks!

 2. The default heart.mv example that is installed
    (Enthought/examples/mayavi/examples) has unix style line
    endings and won't work under win32.  If you convert these to dos
    style line endings this will work.  All I needed to do was to run
    lfcr.py on the offending file.  Would be cool if this were done by
    default.

 3. Seems like the 'enthought' package included is a little dated.  Do
    you plan to update this to a more recent version?

 4. The chm docs are amazing.  However some of the docs like IPython,
    elmer, SWIG etc. are not part of it.  Would be awesome if these
    could also be integrated.

 5. The number of useful packages installed is *very* large (you could
    say "universe included" ;-).  I was actually unaware of all the
    installed packages -- for example mingw and swig were pleasant
    surprises.  It would add a nice touch if a small (or not so small
    :) README.txt with just a listing of all the packages that ship
    with the installer could be shown after the install so the user is
    aware of what is installed.

 6. You seem to have two copies of the VTK Python dlls.  One in
    site-packages/vtk_python and another in
    site-packages/vtk_python/vtk.  Plus the vtk*TCL.dll's are also
    installed.  These are unnecessary and may be removed.  In fact
    your build script need not build the TCL wrappers at all.  You
    just need to make sure CMake gets the Tcl/Tk paths so it can build
    the TkRenderWidget for Python.  No need to turn on Tcl wrapping.
    You've also turned on building the Patented classes.  This _could_
    land you in legal trouble.  So, I'd advise that you turn patented
    libs off.


Finally, I am interested in learning of your experience with aap.  It
looks to be a very interesting tool.  I've used scons and scons really
shines when it comes to building code but I don't think it easily
allows for the kind of thing that aap is so strong in.  Care to share
your thoughts and experience with aap?  In particular, do you think it
is possible to abandon distutils in the future in favor of it?

Anyway thanks again to you and Enthought for the enormous effort
involved in this task and for the quality of the packaging!

cheers,
prabhu