PEP proposal : Getting rid of the extension version/compiler dependency

[Steve Menard]

It's been observed a couple times recently ... distributing and compiling 
extensions is a pain, especially on windows, when the main supported 
compilers are not freely availble .. nor even commercially availble anymore.

What we need is a way to break out of this dependency. A way for python 
extensions to be built using any C compiler and be able to target multiple 
Python runtime version with a single binary build.

I believe I have such a solution.It is heavily influenced byt Java's Native 
Interface, which achieved this independence since day one.

The technical details are too combersome to post here, so I added a page to 
my projects's homepage detailing my proposal. If there is interest, I'd be 
interested in working on the PEP and the implementation.The URL for the 
proposal is http://jpype.sourceforge.net/pni.html

This solution may not be complete. Of multi-platform details might make some 
suggestion impossible or impractical. Please take this proposal as a 
starting point for a discussion.

I have a working prototype for steps 1 that I am using to implement JPype. 
So this is not a pipe dream. it is real and functional.

Please leave tour comments here, or better yet on my blog at 
http://jpype.blogspot.com .

Steve Menard
Author and Maintainer of JPype ( http://jpype.sourceforge.net )