Library support for Python 3.x

[Terry Reedy]

On 1/28/2010 1:37 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> David Cournapeau<cournape at gmail.com>  writes:
>> That's not windows specific - most packages which distribute binary
>> packages need to package binaries for every minor version (2.4, 2.5,
>> etc...)....
>> I doubt that's what Paul was referring to, though - he seemed more
>> concern with API/language changes than ABI issues.
>
> I didn't realize the ABI situation was that unstable.  I thought you
> could just package up a .so or .dll and people could keep using it.  I
> tend to not want to use extension modules that are not in the stdlib,
> and I guess this is another reason to keep staying away from them.

My impression is that there is something 'special' about Windows (msvc) 
such that binaries compiled against x.y automatically do not work for 
x.y+1, even is the ABI is unchanged from Python's viewpoint.

The point of my post that David responded to is that most Windows users 
have always been effectively dependent on 3rd party module/package 
developers to produce a new binary for each new version, whereas many 
*nix users could download the source and compile, or at least give it a go.

tjr