I just tried to set up a Windows box as a client talking to a MySQL database on Linux using Python. So I installed the most recent version of Python (2.6) and then I tried to add the MySQLdb module. There wasn't any binary pre-built for Python 2.6 on Windows (or any other OS), so I pulled down the tarball, unpacked it, and ran setup.py install. That blew up because it couldn't find the version of setuptools that it needed on the cheeseshop.python.org server.
I have to say that I find all the different packaging installation options more than a little confusing (wasn't Perl supposed to be the language that gave you more ways to do something than you really wanted?), and I find myself wondering why the standard distribution of Python doesn't come with everything you need to install a third-party package. That would come closer to the "batteries included" paradigm the community likes to advertise. Grrr. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
