[Python-Dev] Re: Py2.4 pre-alpha snapshot

[Thomas Heller]

Paul Moore <pf_moore at yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> "Raymond Hettinger" <raymond.hettinger at verizon.net> writes:
>
>> I think it would be worthwhile to occasionally (every 3 months or so)
>> package a Py2.4 pre-alpha release. My feel is that a number of people
>> without compilers (Windows users especially) would enjoy working with
>> the latest python if it were an easy thing to do (has an installer,
>> etc).
>
> Speaking as a "latest release" junkie with not enough time to build
> for myself, I'd say it might be nice. But the killer is that you need
> extensions. On Windows, for instance, you'd need to prevail on Mark
> Hammond to produce 2.4-compatible win32all builds (pretty much
> essential on Windows, and a serious pain to build by hand, I believe).

It has been a pain, but not any longer.  win32all can now be built with
a distutils setup script - although there is no official release built
with that.

> Also, you'd need an installer which would sit happily alongside the
> production version (install in a separate directory, include a
> python24.exe so as not to clash in terms of command names, etc).

There's no problem having different major Python versions installed on
one machine, even if there are *also* CVS builds.  It can all be hidden
in batch scripts calling python.exe in different directories.

>> Besides increasing community involvement, this could open up a whole new
>> stream of user feedback so we can discover issues sooner rather than
>> later.  Since non-developers stress the system in different ways, they
>> are more likely to surface various documentation, usability, and
>> integration bugs.
>
> A compromise may just be a simple zipped up compile. That helps people
> without compilers, but leaves the effort of "installing" to the user.
> It still doesn't help with the extensions issue, though...

Then there's the possibility to include the compiled files (even for
different python versions, if you don't care too much about the download
size) in a source distribution prepared by distutils.

Thomas