[Distutils] [pyconuk] "just use debian"

[Josselin Mouette]

Le jeudi 02 octobre 2008 à 12:36 +1200, Greg Ewing a écrit :
> Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > Le mardi 30 septembre 2008 à 17:20 +0200, Tarek Ziadé a écrit :
>  >
> > > I mean, if you change a public API of your package , you *have* to
> > > change its name ?
> > 
> > Yes, this is the requirement for C libraries, and we try to enforce it
> > as well for other languages.
> 
> Things are somewhat different in C, because the filename of
> the .so isn't something you refer to in the source code.
> 
> Applying the same thing to Python would require the version
> to be specified every time the module is mentioned in an
> import statement.

There are no ABI issues with Python. Only when the API changes, software
using it is broken.

When the API changes incompatibly in C, the problem is the same. It is
solved elegantly by pkg-config: the two versions can have a different
(versioned) directory for the includes and a different library name, so
you only change the pkg-config calls or the -I and -l build options.

I wish we had a similar mechanism in Python, allowing to select the API
version in some way. However, since there is no build step, you need to
make it happen somewhere in the code. 

Cheers,
-- 
 .''`.
: :' :      We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code.
`. `'       We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to
  `-        our own. Resistance is futile.
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