Hey everyone,
I was trying to compile pypy and made the following mistakes:

- On this page: http://pypy.org/download.html I couldn't figure out whether I was supposed to run all three of these commands:

pypy ../../rpython/bin/rpython -Ojit targetpypystandalone # get the JIT version
pypy ../../rpython/bin/rpython -O2 targetpypystandalone # get the no-jit version
pypy ../../rpython/bin/rpython -O2 --sandbox targetpypystandalone # get the sandbox version

or just one.

- Once I got it installled I didn't realize there was an additional step after pypy-c was created.

- I tried running python package.py -h and that didn't do what I expected (show help dialog)

- I tried running package.py with the right options and it hung with this message (on both Mac and Centos):

sll_os.ll_os_getenv(sPYPY_GENERATIONGC_NURSERY

The only Google search results for this are an IRC channel from 2 years ago. It turned out I didn't want the Sandbox option, I think.

- I tried compiling outside the sandbox and got this error:

raise NoTTY("Cannot start the debugger when stdout is captured.")

It turns out this is a red herring and the real error was way above that:

error: ffi.h: No such file or directory

It would be nice if these were more obvious.. of course I expect to run into issues but the errors could be more clear when they are.

Continuing the install process now, will post updates here as I have them.

I am happy to help try and fix these where I can, if you can point me in the right direction - I have a fair amount of experience working with new users at Twilio. I have also made exactly one commit to Pypy source code: https://bitbucket.org/pypy/pypy/commits/665baf750859/ Pypy is a lovely project and I'd love to try and help make this process easier.

Best,

Kevin

--
Kevin Burke | Twilio
phone: 925.271.7005 | kev.inburke.com