[Python-Dev] The other Py2.4 issue

[Armin Rigo]

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 11:43:49PM -0500, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> Acceptance for Py2.4 partially hinges on how quickly third party apps
> have their binaries updated.
> 
> I wonder if there is anything we can do to help.

For people like myself, Linux programmers not developing on Windows every day,
there is precious little information available about how to compile our
extension modules for the new Windows distribution.  I was actually very
disappointed to have to google my way around until I found a page that
explained to me that to use Microsoft's free compilers you need to manually
patch the distutils included with 2.4.  (I know this is being worked on right
now but I'd have expected it to be present in the 2.4 release.)  (The only
page I could find still refers to a pre-final 2.4 so their distutils patch
doesn't apply without hand-editing, though that should be fixed by now.)

Moreover, the standard documentation's "Extending and Embedding" has
apparently not been updated at all since 2.3.  That's quite unexpected too...

In other words, if you want 3rd parties to compile Windows binaries for 2.4,
tell them how.

(I even hoped that just doing "python setup.py build" would fail but refer me
to a web page that explains me which free compilers I should get and install
from Microsoft.)


A bientot,

Armin.