Parallel Python x.y.A and x.y.B installations on a single Windows machine

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 11:32 PM, Jurko Gospodnetić
<jurko.gospodnetic at pke.hr> wrote:
> Most of the advice seems to boil down to 'do not use such versions together,
> use only the latest'.
>
>   We would like to run automated tests on one of our projects (packaged as a
> Python library) with different Python versions, and since our code contains
> workarounds for several problems with specific Python patch versions, we'd
> really like to be able to run the tests with those specific versions and
> with as little fuss as possible.

What this says to me is that you're doing something very unusual here
- most people won't be doing that. So maybe you need an unusual
solution.

Is it possible to set up virtualization to help you out? Create a
virtual machine in something like VirtualBox, then clone it for every
Python patch you want to support (you could have one VM that handles
all the .0 releases and another that handles all the .1 releases, or
you could have a separate VM for every Python you want to test). You
could then have a centralized master that each VM registers itself
with, and it feeds out jobs to them. Assuming your tests can be fully
automated, this could work out fairly efficiently - each VM has a
script that establishes a socket connection to the master, the master
hands out a job, the VMs run the test suite, the master collects up a
series of Pass/Fail reports. You could run everything on a single
physical computer, even.

ChrisA