Quoth David Ascher, on 29 March 1999:
On windows, it is sometimes needed to specify other files which aren't .c files, but .def files (possibly all can be done with command line options, but might as well build this in). I don't know how these should fit in...
Are they just listed in the command line like .c files? Or are they specified by a command-line option? Would you use these in code that's meant to be portable to other platforms?
[my add_include_dir()/set_include_dirs() bureaucratic silliness]
Why not expose a list object and have the user modify it?
Duh, you're quite right. I've been doing too much Java lately. Mmmm, bondage...
Yes. In general, I think it's not a bad idea to give control over the command line -- there are too many weird compilers out there with strange options, syntaxes, etc.
But, as I said emphatically in my last post, those sorts of things must be supplied when Python itself is built. I'm already allowing control over include directories and macros -- which are essential -- so I'm willing to throw in -g/-O stuff too. But if we allow access to arbitrary compiler flags, you can kiss portability goodbye!
Greg