[Python-Dev] cffi in stdlib

[Paul Moore]

On 27 February 2013 18:50, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
>> One other use case for the ABI level over the API level - the ABI
>> level (no C extension) can be used across Python versions, where the
>> API level needs a separate compiled extension per Python version. This
>> can be a big deal on Windows at least, where users (not developers)
>> with no compilers on their systems are common.
>>
>
> Is that still true for Windows even with the stable ABI and the dropping of
> narrow/wide Unicode builds?

Probably not, but I've never actually seen the stable ABI used in
practice (and I don't know if cffi restricts itself to the stable
ABI). I'm not sure that any toolchain (such as bdist_wininst or wheel)
really supports it (in the sense that they tend to make the assumption
that if there is a C extension, the code is version-specific).

None of these are insurmountable problems, though.

Paul.