add support for binary build with pyinstaller

[stan-dot]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
We'd like to ship .exe to non-technical users who use Windows

Describe the solution you'd like
Another target similar to pex_binary is available that if computed, results in an exe in the dist folder IF ran on Windows (Pyinstaller is not a cross compiler) https://pyinstaller.org/en/stable/ .

Describe alternatives you've considered
Alternatives:

• Currently .pex could be shipped, but the users would need to turn on Windows Dev Mode - that is not secure enough
• Another way of shipping python apps - Nuitka - would require this issue done Cython Support #14752 which sounds more complicated.
• if we get a simple Python script as a target, perhaps with locked metadata this would be also workable
• also https://github.com/ofek/pyapp might be of use here OR
• embedded python (windows only ) https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3123/

Additional context

[stan-dot]

pex-tool/pex#2658

based on this issue this does not seem possible on the short term roadmap

[stan-dot]

probably the shortest path needs a move on both ends - if the end user has python installed, they can run a python package generated by pants, and install a wheel into their venv

[krylowicz]

I had a similar situation. Since pex and pants do not run on Windows (see https://www.pantsbuild.org/stable/docs/getting-started/prerequisites#microsoft-windows), I used a two step CI pipeline. A Linux runner builds the pex_binary, which makes it easy to pull all first and third party dependencies through pants, and then repackages it into a zip that includes everything that PyInstaller expects. A Windows runner takes that zip and turns it into an .exe using PyInstaller. This approach has been reliable for distributing Windows executables.

[stan-dot]

thanks! I might end up using Bazel for this use case