How to install Python package from source on Windows

[bartc]

On 16/05/2017 22:18, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:14 AM, bartc <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:
>> That PCbuild line is step 3 of Quick Start. You have to get past steps 1 and
>> 2 first. It talks about something called Git; I don't know what that is or
>> what I'm supposed to do with it, but it's a 35MB download. (Not that that is
>> very big these days, but 35MB (compressed size and there may be more to
>> come) suggests complexity that I don't want to get into.)
>
> It's 2017 and you're a programmer. Are you unfamiliar with source
> control, or just unfamiliar with git? Either way, you should look into
> correcting that.

Sorry, no I don't. I like to do things the easy way. Other people can 
tie themselves up in knots if they like, with all these complicated 
tools. (Which, from what I can gather from the thread, don't always work 
as expected.)

I understand that CPython is a C application, ie. a bunch of .c and .h 
sources. So to build it, I need the sources, and a C compiler, yes?

So you download the sources (I've done that, actually; funnily enough I 
didn't appear to need that Git thing). I've got several C compilers, but 
not VS2015, and even managed to compile one module with two of them, 
including Tiny C.

But now I need to know which files go where. This information I doubt 
I'm going to get since developers like to hide this stuff in 'configure' 
files and makefiles and project files. Sometimes it is necessary to run 
a program to create a specific version of a file or some essential 
header or whatever.

This sort of thing can be incredibly simple: download the sources, 
compile modules X, Y and Z, link and run. If it's a bit more elaborate, 
instructions can be provided in English (other languages are available).

We don't need to be locked in to these massive toolsets, where acquiring 
them, learning them, and coaxing them to work is considerably more 
effort than what we're trying to achieve in the first place.

-- 
bartc