While following Dramaking's thread about the .3ds exporter, I noticed that not only the .3ds exporter, but alot of the scripts don't work for me anymore in 2.44 Today, I downloaded the A.N.T. script, and it, too, had errors.
Ugh
It seems the built-in Python interpreter is no longer bundled with Blender!
After a couple of hours of downloading (I am on a weak connection), I finally got Python 2.5 downloaded and installed,(its about twice the size of Blender) and all the scripts are working again.
I am slightly upset about this. I have used Blender for quite some time and have never had to install Python. I am sure it is a great language and all, but I am a C man and will probably never use Python for anything.
I suppose in this day and age, what's a few more million bytes, right?
Oh well, just thought I would let you guys know.

I don't think Python is completely removed from Blender itself, but it may well be that the scripts are growing more demanding, requiring the full Python install.

Show us what you get out of A.N.T., it seems interesting but seemed to demand heavy learning... (Well, I just checked it quickly, I have not even installed it yet.)

Quote - I don't think Python is completely removed from Blender itself, but it may well be that the scripts are growing more demanding, requiring the full Python install

The scripts are the same ...
Test for yourself  :)

No, I have Python installed -- I don't want to break anything that works. :-)

Probably you are right thought -- there were changes from Python 2.4 to 2.5 so scripts may need to use different methods.

And I'm still curious about A.N.T. ... :-)

Ah A.N.T. is just a terrain renderer. Has a very nice GUI with atunna options.

Here is the support thread.

Yeah, it's sad. Python looks cool and all, but it's still a pain to have to download it. Still, I have dial-up also, and it didn't take me near as long. I think that you can get a smaller, stripped version, instead of some complete download. I'd have to check the site again, though :)

Oh, and Blender terrains must be sweet. If you still have trouble with A.N.T., try the Ter2Blend script at geocities.

I just installed python as a matter of course but I'm in the geek category where my machine has loads of languages on it for work (Python, PERL, eclipse / java SDKs etc)

That's kinda lame.  I'm in the same boat as Gog (tons of programming languages installed already) so I didn't notice, but I can see this being a real turn off for new users that are just trying the program and want to to import something from a program they already use just to check it out.

No, python isn't removed from Blender. Only thing that is changed is the fact that 2.44 version is compiled with Python 2.5 version. Many things in BPY are changed to. That's why many of old scripts aren't working in 2.44.
Only solution is to wait for their creators to rewrite them for Python 2.5, or to do it your self.
Now, I don't know why A.N.T script doesn't work in 2.44 without full Python installation but I suspect that full installation of Python is backward compatible with some scripts, and that Python25.dll included with Bledner isn't.

But in the end, I don't understand why is that such a big problem if someone have to dl Python. A whole dl for both packages is still under 20MB. I'm also on 56k and I don't see any problems with that.
I don't know how big is the trial version of max 9, but on Softpedia max7 is 85 MB heavy, Maya PLE 7.1 is 260 MB, on Softimage pages, XSI is arround 400 MB...
Now, if Blender with Python 2.5 is too big...

P.S. And I also have tons of languages installed on my PC, and I only use few of them (Python, PHP, FreePascal, AutoIT, NET SDKs...)

Huh ?
I think you misunderstood. There is no reason to "rewrite" anything. All of the bundled scripts work fine, but only after you install Python. In all previous releases, all scripts that were released with the program worked WITHOUT any Python install.

By the way, how is that Poser morph target import/export script coming? There is a post just below of someone that could use just that.

P.S. Blender is compiled in C , not Python :)

Blender is compiled in C? You've got to be ulling my leg! Of course, you are the wise and ever knowledgeable user, and I am just a newbie. I will acquiesce to whatever you say.

Haha well at least it is written in C, my bad. I thought the source files were in C I dunno I don't compile Blender anything I just download the installer. If I were to download the source could I not compile it in VC++? I've no idea.

Cygwin, Gnu C++  and Microsoft Visual Studio 7 were mentioned somewhere. I believe there are quite many compiling environments for Blender. Actually had to be; many OSes.  And Python is included as scripting solution as a dynamic library (as damir_prebeg said).

There seems to be quite many modified Blender packages also, so I wouln't be surprised if you could code modifications with other languages. I don't know how Shmender and Blender2KT are implemented, for example.

Actually,

Some of the bundled scripts did not work with default Blender install unless you had python installed. That's what the message "..could not find python, continuing happily" was all about.

It's not a big deal to download python to get the full features of Blender.
I am supprised, however, that I had to download a microsoft distibution package to get the latest version to work.

Quote -
Huh ?
I think you misunderstood. There is no reason to "rewrite" anything. All of the bundled scripts work fine, but only after you install Python. In all previous releases, all scripts that were released with the program worked WITHOUT any Python install.

Well, if that's the case then that issue could be a bug in blender, I don't know. I have Python 2.5 installed so I didn't noticed any script problems.

Quote -
By the way, how is that Poser morph target import/export script coming? There is a post just below of someone that could use just that.

It's still under construction :S
I have a lot of my real life work to do and problems to solve, so writing of that script is currently placed "on hold". But I think that soon I will be able to continue with that.

Quote -
P.S. Blender is compiled in C , not Python :)

P.S. No kidding?!? Man, I always thought that Blender is writen in Javascript :D