[Python-Dev] Killing off bdist_dumb

[Guido van Rossum]

> I have already explained several times where the source for
> bdist_wininst lives, I wont do it again (unless someone needs it).
> Maybe it could be moved over to the main python module someday.
> 
> Concerning the 'pile of binary junk' you see on the checkins list
> each time it has to be recompiled (the bdist_wininst.py module contains
> the windows exe stub compressed and base64-encoded literally in a large
> string):
> 
> This was a design decision which could (and can) be questioned.  The
> checkin messages are one side, the other side is this: it avoids
> having a binary file (wininst.exe), which only can be created on
> windows, in the CVS repository and in the distribution.
>   
> bdist_wininst installers *can* also be created on other systems
> as long as they only contain pure Python code - although I've never
> heard of someone actually doing this.
> 
> So, should the bdist_wininst source code be moved into the python
> tree, maybe somewhere into PC, and the MSVC .dsw file extended to
> build the thing, and wininst.exe as binary file go into the distutils
> directory? Even if this would be done, I'd suggest to wait after the
> separate distutils release which we have planned on distutils-sig.

+1

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