Revamping Python build system (Was: pythonXX.dll size: please split CJK codecs out)

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Giovanni Bajo wrote:
>>I'm sure Martin would be happy to consider a patch to make the build
>>system more efficient. :)
> 
> Out of curiosity, was this ever discussed among Python developers? Would
> something like scons qualify for this? OTOH, scons opens nasty
> self-bootstrapping issues (being written itself in Python).

No. The Windows build system must be integrated with Visual Studio.
(Perhaps this is rather, "dunno: is it integrated with VS.NET 2003?")

When developing on Windows, you really want all the support you can
get from VS, e.g. when debugging, performing name completion, etc.
To me, this makes it likely that only VS project files will work.

> Before considering a patch (or even a PEP) for this, the basic requirements
> should be made clear. I know portability among several UNIX flavours is one,
> for instance. What are the others?

Clearly, the starting requirement would be that you look at the build
process *at all*. The Windows build process and the Unix build process
are completely different. Portability is desirable only for the Unix
build process; however, you might find that it already meets your needs
quite well.

Regards,
Martin