[Qgis-developer] QGIS specific installs of Python on Windows is suboptimal

[Trevor Wiens]

In my recent work with an plugin requiring additional python libraries, I
found that the current method of creating a separate python install for
QGIS is quite problematic because:
1. If you have multiple copies of Python installed and you want to use
either easy_install or pip to install additional python libraries this can
be complicated for users to get stuff installed in the right place
2. The QGIS instance of python is not listed in the Windows registry so if
you want to use tools that depend on the windows registry to install
additional libraries (pyaudio for example), that doesn't work unless you
use a script or manually create those windows registry entries.

In this past of having a GIS product separate install of Python was also
followed by ESRI but I noticed installing 10.2.2 today that they appear to
have moved to installing or adding to an generic python install. I've yet
to verify that but based on the install path it looks that way and would be
in my view a big improvement to saving disk space and keeping things
simpler.

I don't know what the implication is for building to 2.6 install tools for
when that version is released, but as I see it if we could allow users to
just add the necessary libraries to a generic python 2.6 or 2.7 install,
that could make things a whole lot easier for QGIS users.

TSW
-- 
Trevor Wiens
Apropos Information Systems
aproposinfosystems.com
Calgary, Alberta
Ph. 403-973-5901
Fax 780-666-4580
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