Hosting Companies: Help for Python Users?

[Steve Holden]

Neil Hodgson wrote:
> Steve Holden:
> 
>> Dennis Lee Beiber:
>>
>>  > Too many 3rd-party modules still aren't available in 2.5
>>  > versions for my tastes...
>>
>> This applies particularly (though not exclusively) to the Windows 
>> platform, for various reasons -- the most common one is that Linux 
>> developers frequently don't have a Windows machine available to help 
>> them test their builds and ensure that distributions are available.
>>
>> I am trying to address this problem, initially by making hosted Windows 
>> machines available for use as buildbots. 
> 
>     I'd like to see this integrated in the Cheese Shop. I recently 
> released a small extension class and provided a source distribution and 
> a single binary for Python 2.5 on Windows. While I have the compilers 
> needed for building back to 1.5, most people don't and even when you do 
> it is complex to set up an environment for each version to compile 
> successfully.
> 
Well, that's a great idea but it's ambitious. I'm not sure how we could 
give access to all the developers of Cheese Shop packages who would like 
to define a Windows build. Your skills and knowledge could clearly be 
valuable here.

>     It would be great if you could upload a source distribution and mark 
> it as containing files that need compilation for each version - or a 
> subset of versions if you know it requires particular features. Then the 
> compilation is farmed out to machines set up for each Python version and 
> when the compilation is finished, a status display shows the set that 
> are available and which failed along with a link to see the compilation 
> log. A unit test could be optionally included in an upload that would 
> contribute to whether the build is marked good.
> 
It would indeed be great, and this was my original grand conception. 
Given that it will all have to be supported by volunteer effort, though, 
I can't commit to providing these features much as I would like to see 
them available - much more is needed in the way of community support 
before we can advertise what's effectively a compile farm for each 
Python version (and then we would need to take the various different 
Windows-supported hardware architectures into account).

Please don't think I am trying to pour cold water on your enthusiasm, I 
really do believe that what you describe would be a great facility. I am 
just trying to temper the enthusiasm with a modest dose of reality. If 
we could get enough offers of hosted machines and buildbot management I 
would love to see this come to fruition.

regards
  Steve
-- 
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