From: tismer at appliedbiometrics.com (Christian Tismer)
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 11:40:24 GMT
Subject: WinDLL CallDLL
References: <370327E3.66047D53@easystreet.com>
		<3703CB0C.83AB035E@ingr.com> <370402DE.E6AD7C37@easystreet.com>
Message-ID: <3705FE28.372A3D7A@appliedbiometrics.com>
Content-Length: 3696
X-UID: 105                                                 


Al Christians wrote:
> 
> I'm still getting some success running the DLLDemo.Py, but none
> with any of the others.  I get addressing exceptions from them.

Well, I have never tested with NT SP4, so we can't be sure
which piece of software is going nuts here.
I will send you exactly the .pyd files which I use,
and we will try some basic steps together. If that doesn't
work, I would believe you have a problem with you system.

[other path fiddling stuff which does not address the problem]

> I've done that, too, and made the change to DynWin\__init__.py given
> by Christian Tismer.

Whatever you did, there is no reason for the kind of crashes
you get. Dynwin should not work at all since it cannot import
a module, or it should work just fine.

> I've deleted my \Python directory and done several reinstalls of
> Py152b2.exe.  No success.  Do I need to install from the source.
> I've also tried re-building CallDLL.Pyd using MSVC++ v5.  That
> seemed to succeed.  But I get the same run-time results.

No, you need to use another approach to track this down.
There is a different problem which you will not solve
unless you do smaller steps. I never had the problems
you have, just different ones. We need to step by steps
check out if you can use calldll and npstruct as necessary,
then check the modules which are built upon it.
I will attach some examples which you should try.

> I don't complain about something given gratis, like all this fine
> python software, but there does seem to be some potential for improving
> the packaging or beefing up the documentation a little here and there.

Sorry, you are right in the general case but not in this one.
Sam has done some great work. He has a very special minimalistic
approach, and his number of users is relatively small compared
to, say PythonWin. He never claimed that his stuff is ready,
but it is all alpha stuff where he is providing a preview
for the curious. Using DynWin is not using a ready-made package
which has a couple of maintainers, but you are on your own, or
better: You are jumping into the boat to help Sam with improving it.

> I can offer some time to try to help do that for some of these packages
> that run on NT.  If any developers of python code that is licensed as
> some variety of free or open source want to take advantage of the point
> of view of a typically brain-dead potential user for a few hours and
> collaborate on recording what we have to learn to do to get this stuff
> installed, they could contact me.  I suppose, however, that in most
> cases it is pure lack of time that prevents production of more
> documentation, and that it would be easier for the developer to write
> it directly than to try to collaborate.

This case is even worse since at the time Sam was working
on DynWin and LumberJack, having reached his "critical mass", 
he was hired away
"""Ack! I have taken a full-time job, so work on lumberjack will 
halt for a couple of months. Stay Tuned..."""

This was from October 17, see 
http://www.nightmare.com/~rushing/lumberjack/index.html

That means he might be in the "gosh I simply got no time" state
which I know very well. Until that becomes better, people
like Gordon McMillan and me might be able to help.

cheers - chris

-- 
Christian Tismer             :^)   <mailto:tismer at appliedbiometrics.com>
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