[Python-Dev] buildin vs. shared modules

[Thomas Heller]

>> Needed to start Python - should be builtin:
>> 
>>   zlib _sre
>
> +1 for _sre.
>
> I'd be +1 for zlib, but see bz2 below for a quibble.  (How important
> is this *really* for bootstrap reasons?)
>
[...]
> I'm -1 on bz2; I think bz2 requires a 3rd party external library; for
> developers building their own Python who don't want to bother with
> that, it's much easier to ignore a DLL that can't be built than to
> have to cut a module out of the core DLL.
>
> The same argument applies to zlib -- but I could be swayed by the
> counterargument that zlib is needed for zipimport bootrstrap purposes.
> (Though is it? you can create zip files without using compression.)

No, it has nothing to do with zipimport's bootstrap.  When zlib is
available, you can import from compressed zipfiles, when it's not
available, you cannot. (Hopefully Just corrects me if I'm wrong)

Of course, uncompressed zipfiles would always work - and they may be
preferred because they might be even faster.

> Long ago, when I first set up the VC5 project, there were still some
> target systems out there that didn't have a working winsock DLL, and
> "import socket" or "import select" would fail there for that reason.
> If this is no longer a problem, I'm +1 on this.

Not on the sytems that I work on. To be double sure, _socket could be
rewritten to load the winsock dll dynamically. And maybe this becomes
an issue again if IPv6 is compiled in.

>> There may be incompatibilities - that's why I asked about 2.3.3 or 2.4.
>
> I wouldn't mess with 2.3.3.

Ok.

Thomas