[wxPython-users] Distribution & Auto-Updater

[Christopher Barker]

Marcus wrote:
> My only concern with using Python on the client-side is the distribution 
> and updater issue.

Python is nothing if not flexible! I'm sure you can solve this one way 
or another.

> I've read py2exe's docs and info about pyInstaller 
> and the like, but I don't see an easy way to divide an application into 
> DLL-like modules so that users can download just a portion of the 
> application at a time, without resorting to storing all of my python 
> source code on the client in cleartext.

If nothing else, the code can at least be stored as *.pyc files: 
compiled python byte code. It's not what anyone would call secure, but 
it's not source code, either.

> I can distribute the app via an installer on their first run, but the 
> auto-updater is very useful in this case because the DLLs for my app are 
> updated fairly frequently.

I'm not sure about pyInstaller, but I think py2exe keeps the python 
files in a zip file, so, in theory, parts of the code could be updated 
in place.

> Perhaps Python isn't the right tool for the job, since it wasn't really 
> intended to keep source code obfuscated and modular at the same time.

Frankly, it's not designed to be obfuscated code at all -- if this is 
really important to you (and I doubt it really is), then you may be stuck.

> It  just seems like Python would be much more elegant than a wx/C++ solution.

Yes it is, and I'll bet anyone on this list would tell you that you'll 
save more time by using Python than you'll lose by having to develop an 
updating solution.

-CHB



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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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