[Python-ideas] Wheels For ...

[Sven R. Kunze]

On 07.09.2015 07:39, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
>
> > Fortunately, lxml has a built-in option (triggered by an env 
> variable) for dealing with this, by downloading the source, building a 
> local copy of the libs, and statically linking them into lxml, but 
> that means you need some way for a package to specify env variables to 
> be set on the build server. And can you expect most libraries with 
> similar issues to do the same?
>
> Yes, you can! :-)
>
> I mean, not everyone will necessarily use it, but adding code like
>
> if "PYPI_BUILD_SERVER" in os.environ:
>     do_static_link = True
>
> to your setup.py is *wayyyy* easier than buying an OS X machine and 
> maintaining it and doing manual builds at every release. Or finding a 
> volunteer who has an OS X box and nagging them at every release and 
> dealing with trust hassles.
>

You bet what I just needed to do. Depending on somebody else machine is 
really frustrating.

> And there are a lot of packages out there that just have some cython 
> files in them for speedups with no external dependencies, or whatever. 
> A build farm wouldn't have to be perfect to be extremely useful.
>

I agree. Just good enough suffices for 80% of all the packages to be in 
good shape. Nick mentioned some improvements that are necessary before 
we can indulge such a building farm (except the farm itself).

Best,
Sven