Roadmap modified by stonebig

stonebig — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 08:12:09 -0000

--- v1
+++ v2
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+now maintained on https://github.com/winpython/winpython/wiki/Roadmap
+
+Legacy version:
+
 My first post related to WinPython on Spyder's blog is worth reading to understand a few things regarding the original motivation and some facts on building 64-bit Python packages on Windows -- it's entitled: "[Scientific Python distribution for Windows 64bit](http://spyder-ide.blogspot.fr/2012/08/scientific-python-distribution-for.html)".

 After creating the [Python(x,y)](http://www.pythonxy.com) distribution which is still a great success in the scientific Python ecosystem, I wanted to try another way of distributing Python for Windows through a portable distribution which would rely on official packages only (i.e. libraries built by their own maintainer) instead of having to rebuild every single package like it's done with Python(x,y).

Roadmap modified by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 15:47:04 -0000

My first post related to WinPython on Spyder's blog is worth reading to understand a few things regarding the original motivation and some facts on building 64-bit Python packages on Windows -- it's entitled: "Scientific Python distribution for Windows 64bit".

After creating the Python(x,y) distribution which is still a great success in the scientific Python ecosystem, I wanted to try another way of distributing Python for Windows through a portable distribution which would rely on official packages only (i.e. libraries built by their own maintainer) instead of having to rebuild every single package like it's done with Python(x,y).

A portable distribution means that it's all in a single, self-consistent folder which is movable to any location without any installation procedure: in other words, copying is installing. To make it work, configuration scripts must be executed before the Python interpreter itself is started, setting up the right environment for its execution.

As a consequence, multiple versions of WinPython (with arbitrary versions or architectures of Python) may be used on the same machine without any specific configuration. In August 2012, when I decided to launch the project, this was the strongest motivation of all: being able to use as many Python distributions as I need on any machine, in a 5 minutes top (just the time to unzip a 200-300MB archive), thus allowing to test scripts with Python 2.7 or 3.3, 32 or 64bit.

Ultimately, this will allow me to keep with me on a USB key my whole development framework: a working Python/Spyder environment, TortoiseHg and other development tools and all my projects. Note that it will also require a redirection of user settings environment variable %USERPROFILE%[1] and a new feature in Spyder (being able to set the workspace directory location to a relative path[2]).

[1] I'm still not sure about this. For example, when working on the same machine for a time being, this maybe annoying to loose settings everytime you switch from a distribution to another: in this situation, the single settings folder in user's home directory would probably be more comfortable.

[2] Since this changeset, this is handled by the executable launchers of Spyder in WinPython.

Recent changes to Roadmap

Roadmap modified by stonebig

Roadmap modified by Anonymous