[osgeo4w-dev] Python GIS programming environment under Windows

[Gilles Bassière]

Hi,

I'm new to this list and before anything else I would like to thank the
people behind OSGeo4W for their work. I believe it makes OSGeo projects
much more accessible to common GIS users.

For the purpose of a GIS programming lab, I'm trying to get up and
running the following: Python, a Python IDE and several libraries
(primarily GDAL/OGR and Mapnik but also Geopy).

Regarding the IDE, I don't have specific requirements, I merely want to
avoid using cmd.exe because this might frighten my students :) IDLE
would be fine for example but I can't find it in the OSGeo4W components.

I see that Pythonwin is present but I get this error when I launch it:
This application has failed to start because MSVCR71.dll was not found.
I did try to re-install python-win32 but it doesn't help (my test
platform is Windows XP within a VirtualBox).

I'm thinking of installing Python/IDLE separately but I'm not sure it
will be able to find/use packages from the osgeo4w stack.

I'm looking for advices about the easiest way to get a Python GIS
programming environment under Windows.

Best regards
-- 
Gilles Bassière - Web/GIS software engineer
http://gbassiere.free.fr/