[Python-Dev] buildtime vs runtime in Distutils

[Floris Bruynooghe]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 11:27:29PM -0500, Tres Seaver wrote:
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> Tarek Ziadé wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 3:35 AM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> > [..]
> >> Do we really want to change distutils to solve a problem of a third
> >> party packaging system when the problem was created by the very same
> >> third party in the first place? In other words: Should you spend your
> >> precious development time with fixing a problem that isn't our fault?
> >> The decision to split the header files into a separate package, that
> >> isn't installed by default, has already created tons of bad user
> >> experience in the past. Do you want to endorse the split even further?
> > 
> > I didn't know the split story went like this. I took it like the
> > "natural" split everyone
> > agreed on, and I saw this distutils <-> Makefile link like something to fix.
> > 
> > So, it sounds like a bad idea now :)
> 
> Parsing the Makefile at runtime seems like an insane choice anyway to
> me:  +1 for your new module having constants generated at ./configure time.

+1

There have been bugs in the past about
distutils.sysconfig.parse_makefile() not knowing the full make syntax
and there will no doubt still be bugs like this.  Substituting these
variables at ./configure time into a .py.in file would be much safer.

Regards
Floris

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