[Distutils] Questions about distutils strategy

[Tim Peters]

[Ian Searle]
> ...
> I can debug just fine using distutils on Solaris/Linux, but cannot do
> the same on Windows.  As far as I can tell, you _have_ to have a
> DevStudio project setup to debug anything under windows.

[Greg Ward]
> Ooh, yuck.  And here I thought that invoking the MSVC command-line
> compiler directly was a feature. ...

It is.  The DevStudio debugger doesn't care how an .exe got built (provided
you passed the compiler the right switches to get debug info generated).
The main Windows project I work on is built by a hand-written makefile run
by a homegrown Win32 variant of GNU make; DevStudio plays no role in it
unless & until I want to run under the debugger.  Goodness, you can even use
the DevStudio Build -> Start Debug -> Attach to Process ... menu item to
start debugging an arbitrary process already running on the system, source
code or not, originally in a DevStudio language or not.  If it wasn't
compiled with MS-style symbol info, though, you can't do much more than step
thru the machine code.

Notwithstanding, many hardcore Windows weenies *prefer* doing development
under DevStudio.  But I'd say that's a topic for the DevUtils SIG <wink>.

ian-will-figure-out-how-to-use-devstudio-long-before-you'll-figure-
    out-how-to-automate-it-ly y'rs  - tim