simple system for building packages for multiple platforms?

[Dan Goodman]

Hi all,

Until recently, our package has been pure Python, so distributing it has 
been straightforward. Now, however, we want to add some extension 
modules in C++. We're happy to provide source only distributions on 
Linux because almost all Linux users will have all the required 
compilers and so forth already installed. But we also want to support 
Windows users who may not have C++ compilers available, which means 
providing built distributions. But, we're faced with this problem, there 
are three versions of Python we're supporting (2.5-2.7) and two 
architectures (32 and 64 bit), which means 6 possible platforms to build 
for (and maybe more in future if we upgrade to Python 3). Is there a 
straightforward way to set up a semi-automated build system for this?

At the moment, I'm thinking about either having a bunch of virtual 
machines or Amazon EC2 instances and submitting build jobs to these, but 
setting that up looks to be a lot of work and I guess many people have 
had this problem before. So, what do other people do?

Also, once we have a build system up, I guess it can also be used for a 
more extensive testing system on these multiple platforms?

Dan