[Python-Dev] Plea to distribute debugging lib

[David Abrahams]

Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> writes:

> [David Abrahams]
>> For years, Boost.Python has been doing some hacks to work around the
>> fact that a Windows Python distro doesn't include the debug build of
>> the library.
>> ...
>> MS is recommending that we (Boost) start distributing a debug build of the
>> Python DLL with Boost, but Boost really seems like the wrong place to host
>> such a thing.  Is there any way Python.org can make a debug build more
>> accessible?
>
> Possibly.  I don't do this anymore (this == build the Python Windows
> installers), but I used to.  For some time I also made available a zip
> file containing various debug-build bits, captured at the time the
> official installer was built. We didn't (and I'm sure we still don't)
> want to include them in the main installer, because they bloat its
> size for something most users truly do not want.
>
> I got sick of building the debug zip file, and stopped doing that too.
>  No two users wanted the same set of stuff in it, so it grew to
> contain the union of everything everyone wanted, and then people
> complained that it was "too big".  This is one of the few times in
> your Uncle Timmy's life that he said "so screw it -- do it yourself,
> you whiny baby whiners with your incessant baby whining you " ;-)
>
> Based on that sure-to-be universal reaction from anyone who signs up
> for this, I'd say the best thing you could do to help it along is to
> define precisely (a) what an acceptable distribution format is; and,
> (b) what exactly it should contain.

Who knows what the whiny babies will accept?  That said, I think
people would be happy with a .zip file containing whatever is built by
selecting the debug build in the VS project and asking it to build
everything. (**)

> That, and being nice to Martin, 

I'm always as nice as Davidly possible to Martin!

> would go a long way.

My fingers and toes are crossed.

Thanks!

(**) If you could build the ability to download the debugging binaries
into the regular installer, that would be the shiznit, but I don't
dare ask for it. ;-)

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com