[Twisted-Python] A newbie experience. Chapter one.

[Nils R Grotnes]

I'm a newbie, both with Python and with Twisted. That means I probably
can't contribute as much as I want, but I believe there's one thing I can
do that most of you maybe can not; That is to describe how it really feels
to start with a very fresh (and simple?) mind. Here is one try.

While waiting for a stable Debian 3.0, I'm back in Windows where I have
learned most of what I know about programming and using computers. My
current machine is a Win2K Pro, and it's quite updated and stable. I got
Python 2.2.1 installed, and the latest Pythonwin too. I can't seem to find
a PYTHONPATH anywhere, but since pydocgui.pyw runs fine, I'd like to
believe that things has been installed well enough, this far.

Then I had my first head-scratcher. I've read most of what's available on
the Twisted website, and downloaded the zipped version of the source and
documentation. "Installing Twisted" told me that "If you are on Windows,
you may want to skip this and simply get the Windows Installer version of
Twisted from the download page." Since all I could find was the
Twisted-0.19.0.zip, I expected that zip-file to be the one. Silly me...

Unpacking it revealed no setup.exe or .msi, but fortunately another
procedure was described: "setup.py install". That sure did make something
happen, though I'm not sure everything worked. Still, a twisted folder
_was_ added to site-packages, but did it happen because I had unpacked
twisted-0.19.0 there, or because the (invisible) PYTHONPATH was ok?

Inspecting this new Twisted folder did make me feel a little better, it
looked very similar to my earlier Debian install. Now to follow the final
suggestion from "Installing Twisted". After figuring out that the
"admin/runtests" was still back in the old folder, the next step was to get
it to run.

In the end, the command "c:\python22\python admin/runtests" worked, which
made me think I really should have added that PYTHONPATH anyway...

Four failures and four errors doesn't seem much, though the test window
itself bombing was less impressive. Running the test again only led to 2
failures. Setting PYTHONPATH in the "Command Prompt"-shell to
"C:\Python22\Lib\site-packages\Twisted-0.19.0\", running "setup.py install"
again, then running another full test led to another failure removed. I
think I'll leave the head-scratching over that strangeness to the pro's.

Still, I have had some of Twisted running! There's hope.

Nils

(Logfile with some extra comments attached.)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: testlog.zip
Type: application/zip
Size: 5909 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://twistedmatrix.com/pipermail/twisted-python/attachments/20020718/1f222f9e/attachment.zip