[Python-Dev] Preventing 1.5 extensions crashing under 1.6/2.0 Python

[Guido van Rossum]

[James Ahlstrom makes a plea for keeping the DLL name unchanged
(python15.dll) so that existing extensions don't have to be rebuilt
if they don't make calls to API functions that changed.]

The problem with this is that it's hard to say whether this is the
case.  We haven't made an effort to keep the APIs compatible, because
we were planning to change the DLL name to be incompatible.

I guess we'd need a Microsoft style testing department that collects a
large set of existing 1.5 style extensions, builds a Python 2.0 DLL
named python15.dll, and tests whether all those 1.5 style extensions
work correctly.  Seems a lot of work to me.

Plus, we'd have to check whether we didn't change any of the object
lay-outs that are accessible via macros...

Frankly, I'd rather declare incompatibility than do all the work.
What's it good for?  We're not forcing people to upgrade if their
favorite DLLs haven't been upgraded yet...

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://dinsdale.python.org/~guido/)