How to install Python package from source on Windows

[Deborah Swanson]

Why do you care so deeply what pip does on an operating system that is
no longer supported?

Anaconda3 Python 3.4.3 just barely installed on XP SP2, and it's given
me nothing but trouble since. I don't need any help with it.

As for my original question about installing recordclass from source, I
got one suggestion that I could just copy the files to "the appropriate
directories", and nothing but silence when I said that I could guess
where to put the .py files but wasn't sure, and memoryslots.c needs to
be compiled before it can be copied anywhere. I'm pretty sure I can
compile it with Tiny C and resume guessing where the files go, etc. on
my own. That was my last request for help, and I certainly don't recall
offering any services to satisfy the inquiries of where this thread
ended up. I'm sorry, but any other assumptions that were made about what
I was there for were simply in error.

And I'm sorry you're upset that pip is not behaving as expected, but
please remember that this happened in an unstable build of Anaconda3 on
an unsupported operating system.

Deborah

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Moore [mailto:p.f.moore at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 11:01 AM
> To: python at deborahswanson.net; python-list at python.org
> Subject: How to install Python package from source on Windows
> 
> 
> On 30 May 2017 at 16:56, Deborah Swanson 
> <python at deborahswanson.net> wrote:
> > I'm sorry people on the list somehow got the idea I was asking for 
> > help with this. Originally I only asked how to build 
> recordclass from 
> > source, and apparently I made the mistake of chiming in with my 
> > experiences with Anaconda3, Python 3.4.3, on XP SP2, when the 
> > conversation turned to Python's use of Visual C++ and 
> Visual Studio in 
> > the installation of new builds. I thought you might find my 
> > experiences interesting, but at no point did I ask for help 
> that I'm 
> > aware of. If I did somehow give that impression it was a 
> > miscommunication with no intentional asking for help.
> 
> It certainly wasn't clear to me that once you'd got beyond 
> the installation of recordclass, you were not asking for help.
> 
> From my perspective, as one of the authors of pip, you seemed 
> to be hitting a number of issues, all of which I would 
> consider to be pretty serious problems with the usability of 
> pip. And I'd want to get to the bottom of them so I could get 
> them fixed for other users, as much as for yourself.
> 
> 1. That pip (or maybe Python?) attempts to install Visual 
> Studio. If true, this would be a pretty serious security 
> issue, as you clearly didn't intend to request an install of 
> VS. 2. That upgrading pip via "python -m pip install -U pip" 
> didn't work. That command's already far messier than we would 
> like, so we take any further issues making it hard for people 
> to keep up to date with pip pretty seriously. 3. That you 
> even thought that pip should want to install VS - which is a 
> problem with our documentation.
> 
> Obviously, you aren't required to do any diagnosis beyond 
> that needed to resolve your own issues, but the fact that you 
> were still participating in the thread seemed like you were 
> willing to help - so people asked questions to try to pin 
> down the issue. Part of that is trying to reproduce your 
> problems, and identify what's particular about your case, so 
> understanding details of your system is important. Things got 
> a little out of hand at this point because it appears that 
> you got the impression that people were criticising your 
> choice of system. I don't think they were, but I didn't read 
> the thread in full (and I know that it's sometimes easy to 
> see such criticism - as a Windows user myself, I'm prone to 
> over-reacting to "you wouldn't get that with Linux" types of 
> comment!) Nevertheless, I don't recall seeing you ever saying 
> that you'd resolved your issues to your satisfaction, and you 
> didn't think that the problems you'd mentioned were going to 
> happen to anyone else, as they were specific to your setup. 
> Maybe I missed it (it's a long thread and I did skim rather 
> than reading in detail) - apologies if that was the case.
> 
> > My strong suspicion is that the reason I'm actually seeing failed 
> > attempts to install Visual C++ and Visual Studio 2015 while none of 
> > you others are seeing any use of Visual C++/Studio is 
> because it shows 
> > up in my tracebacks when it fails. In an XP SP3 or later 
> Windows these 
> > minor installations would succeed and the user would never 
> know they 
> > occurred, or perhaps they aren't even needed on later versions of 
> > Windows.
> 
> Here, you still seem to be asserting that Python is trying to 
> install something (VS). That simply isn't true. It may be 
> that you're just saying that *something* caused an install 
> attempt, and aren't interested in what it was. But for the 
> sake of others finding this thread, I'd ask you to confirm 
> that you understand that we're telling you that it isn't 
> Python - or assist the rest of us to find out the truth, 
> because we'd be very concerned if a user's attempts to use 
> Python normally could cause attempted installs of *anything*. 
> In theory, that could be a pretty serious security issue. 
> (I'm sure it isn't, though - because I don't think that's 
> what's happening).
> 
> > Unfortunately I didn't keep my tracebacks, having thought that they 
> > were no longer of any interest to the group at the time I had them, 
> > and I'm unwilling to destabilize my system and risk any 
> further loss 
> > of functionality in any more attempts to reproduce them.
> 
> That's fine. But a simple statement to the effect that you 
> have things working as you want, and that it appears that 
> there's no evidence that Python was the cause of the VS 
> installation attempts, and you don't need to take things any 
> further, would make things much clearer.
> 
> > I hope I am being perfectly clear now. But I certainly 
> wasn't willing 
> > to go up against an angry mob intent on "helping" me or satisfying 
> > their curiosity at my my expense (or whatever they wanted), when I 
> > neither wanted nor needed (nor was aware of any explicit 
> request for) 
> > any help. It is what it is, and I'm progressing just fine with what 
> > I've got.
> 
> Feelings certainly were running high, and hopefully they can 
> calm down now. But from my perspective, there's no "angry 
> mob", simply people who thought you wanted help, and were 
> confused and frustrated by your responses. An "it's OK I got 
> things sorted, thanks for the help" posting, followed by 
> maybe a couple of replies along the lines of "no idea, I 
> don't have any of the evidence any more so I guess it wasn't 
> what I thought it was" to the inevitable "so what was the 
> problem" questions, should clear things up.
> 
> Paul
>