Python required?

Steven Noonan steven at uplinklabs.net
Fri Nov 12 04:40:05 CST 2010


On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Patrick Mézard <pmezard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Le 12/11/10 07:50, Steven Noonan a écrit :
>> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 10:07 PM, josef betancourt
>> <josef.betancourt at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Small quibble.  On the main Mercurial page:  http://mercurial.selenic.com/
>>> the top right section states:
>>> Requirements Python 2.4 (get python)Is that really accurate?   If I download
>>> the binary version for Windows I don't need Python.  Now I don't remember if
>>> I had Python on my current system before Mercurial, and my statement is
>>> false.  Anyway, my point is, this can be a sort of turn off for someone who
>>> is not interested in installing another language into their Windows system.
>>>
>>
>> You _do_ actually need Python on the Windows binary version. The
>> difference is that the Windows version is packaged with a build of
>> Python 2.6.x. It's using python26.dll, with hg.exe as a wrapper for
>> Mercurial.
>
> This is a technical detail IMHO, the referenced page intent is to tell people what they ought to download to have a working Mercurial. They do not care whether it is written in python or not. If it leads people to download a python installer when looking for Mercurial on Windows then we should update it.
>

I suppose that's true. It's reasonable to extend this to include Mac
OS X users, too. Even though Apple preinstalls a version of Python
2.6.x, python.org does provide a distribution of Python. While
Mercurial can use either one just fine, end users may not be aware of
this, and end up downloading the python.org version unnecessarily.

Come to think of it, some people could take the requirement even more
literally, and think that Python 2.4.x is the version needed, rather
than the minimum supported.

However, I'm not sure how the main page could be reworded without
getting too verbose. Ideally, we want to say that the user needs to
install Python if they don't use the Windows binary distribution, or
if their OS doesn't distribute Python on a default install. The right
column of the Downloads page could easily be modified to say this, but
I don't know about the main page. Too much text there, and it becomes
crowded and overly wordy. Perhaps the big 'Download' button could just
link to the Downloads page, and the requirements be listed there
instead?

- Steven


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