version-number dependency in extensions (was Re: ConfigParser module in 1.52 is buggy?)

[Neil Hodgson]

> That would work fine for COM.  However, as noted in the thread I pointed
> at, the problem is not limited to COM.  The win32all installer tries to
> use Python, and it too has the same basic problem.

   I couldn't work out quite what was going wrong with the installer.
Loading the shim failed because it implictly linked to Python16? In that
case putenv PATH+python directory before loading the shim.

> In general, this change would mean that embedders can not expect their
> code to "just work".  They would need to take special action or copy
> Python into their application directory.

   Because embedders implicitly link to Python.dll? There are a few
techniques here. Set up an AppPath when installing the embedding app. Use
delay loading and set the PATH before calling any functions.

> PyXPCOM would not work.

   Dunno how PyXPCOM works but I'm sure it can be fixed. Adding an extra DLL
and writing some explicit loading code has fixed these sorts of problems for
me in the past.

> Any program _other_
> than python.exe and pythonw.exe would need this special handling.

   Yes, there needs to be some code somewhere either in installers or
embedding executables that does stuff but that doesn't sound fatal to me.

> This is not to suggest it is necessarily a bad thing, but it clearly is
> not a great thing <wink>.  Are we just transferring the pain?

   But transferring the pain to you is such a /fun/ option ;)

   Neil