I am used to using PHP and it is easy to set up, I can just run an exe package like Xampp and have apache and PHP running in 5 minutes on my windows system. Is there something similar to Python?
+2
A:
MS Article for this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276494
Andreas Hoffmann
2010-01-27 07:48:19
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Yes, you can find python from http://python.org
and If you like to make executable files from .py source file you may use py2exe
S.Mark
2010-01-27 07:50:23
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Unlike PHP, Python's primary purpose is a general-purpose tool for running on the desktop/server, not necessarily as a web application. It has bindings to many powerful GUI toolkits (Qt and wx are two examples of free and popular toolkits that work great on Windows), and so on. Therefore you just download it (either from python.org or from activestate), install it, and run it. That's it.
That said, Python is actually great for web apps too. See the Django tutorial for running a simple web-app on your PC in just a few minutes. Python actually comes with a simple web-server built-in, and it supports SQLite out of the box as well, so you can have a fully functional DB-backed web-application running without actually installing anything else. Naturally, if you need to use tools like MySQL and Apache, these are easy to connect to Python on the desktop too. Just start with that Django tutorial and everything will be clear.
Eli Bendersky
2010-01-27 07:50:36
I disagree as does django
whatnick
2010-01-27 07:51:10
@whatnick python is so much more than the back end for web apps.
Seth
2010-01-27 07:52:10
Python will not be "up and running in 5 minutes". Python is not PHP and is not comparable to PHP. Python does much, PHP does little. If "have apache and PHP running in 5 minutes" is some kind of goal, Python will not meet this goal. I can't see why that's a goal, however, since you do that so rarely.
S.Lott
2010-01-27 11:18:55
@S.Lott did you really mean it as a comment to my answer, or to the original question?
Eli Bendersky
2010-01-27 11:50:26
Your answer is excellent, but it doesn't really address the "up and running in 5 minutes." The question is flawed, but your answer is solid.
S.Lott
2010-01-27 18:17:02
@S.Lott: Well *technically* Python can also be downloaded installed and run in 5 minutes. Not that it makes a difference, of course. And, uhm, ActivePython takes ages to install recently
Eli Bendersky
2010-01-27 18:27:41
A:
Nope no easy way out for you yet, Python is obviously not popular enough in Web dev. You should install mod_python and django. There are some nice step here.
whatnick
2010-01-27 07:53:06
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You don't say in your question what you are going to use Python for, so most answers above are completely correct in pointing out that you install Python by downloading it from Python.org. But you seem to expect more. Is it correct to assume you are going to use it to do web development?
In that case, prepare for a shock, because Python doesn't do things like PHP does at *all*. You want to use a web framework. There are loads of them for Python. Which on to use depends both on what you are going to do, and your personal taste.
The only "Download as one file and install to run" web system I know of that's based on Python is Plone. And Plone is great, but it's not a webframework, it's a content management system. But hey, maybe that's what you want? :-)
The other frameworks are usually easy to install as well.
(In the long run: If you are going to do web development, you'll be happier with something Unix based. Just saying.)
Lennart Regebro
2010-01-27 08:03:09
Basicly I have a background in PHP and I hear nothing but good stuff about python on here for web dev so I wanted to check it out
Jack Ferrari
2010-01-27 08:49:00
And so you should. But it doesn't work like PHP, it's not a script language you stick into HTML (although you can, but you dont' *want* to. Take a look at some Web frameworks. Django, Turbogears, and BFG would be my recommended shortlist of python web frameworks to check out (but there are many more).
Lennart Regebro
2010-01-27 09:31:24
+1
A:
Here's my opinionated answer:
Download and install ActivePython
Open Command Prompt and type
pypm install djangoFollow the Django tutorial
Note that Django does not necessarily require a webserver like Apache, as it already includes one for development purposes. Nor do you necessarily have to install MySQL as Python already includes SQLite which is supported by Django.
Sridhar Ratnakumar
2010-01-28 03:57:58