Welcome to the XXIst century!

Yeah, so I finally upgraded my Python and wxPython versions. OK, so I hadn't upgraded since 1999, OK? OK? You got a problem with Python 2.1 and wxPython 2.3? Hey, they were good enough for us back then.

So now I'm on Python 2.4 and wxPython 2.8 and it only cost me a day of flailing around, realizing I hadn't compiled anything in C in an inordinately long time (two laptops ago, actually), trying Microsoft's new free MSVC environment, rejecting it due its stupid requirement of manifests for the runtime (who forces licensing for a C runtime? Microsoft, that's who) and switching back to MSVC 5.0, which was good enough for grandpa so it's good enough for me. That kind of thing. But now it all works again, and while the switch from Py2.1 to Py2.4 isn't going to get me much, there are a lot of fancy new widgets in wx2.8.

(As soon as I have another day to spare for it, I'm seriously going to migrate over to MingW32 and be done with MSVC for good. I've used MingW32, way way back when you had to handroll and compile your own Perl to run it on Windows, and it's a dandy compiler. But the wftk has a rather complex build environment on Windows, and getting that all to work right with a new compiler felt rather daunting yesterday. So I'll do it later.)

Primary among the fancy novelties in wxPython 2.8 is a nice class to put an icon on the system tray in Windows, and that was really what made me break down and do it in the end. Oh, no, I forgot -- the other reason is that to get to the Windows COM classes I need the Win32 classes but they don't support Python 2.1 any more. Not even available for download! So here I am, being dragged kicking and screaming into the new Python millennium.