[Python-Dev] Adventures with x64, VS7 and VS8 on Windows

[Mark Hammond]

> However, I think people ask much too often for a debugging build;
> in many cases, they could work happily with a release build that
> supports debugging. Depending on the problem you try to solve, you
> may or may not need debug information for pythonxy.dll as well,
> or just for your extension module.

While that is true in theory, I often find it is not the case in practice,
generally due to the optimizer.  Depending on what magic the compiler has
done, it can be very difficult to set breakpoints (conditional or
otherwise), inspect variable values, etc.  It is useful in some cases, but
very often I find myself falling back to a debug build after attempting to
debug a local release build.

> I think there are several other cases in distutils to support
> special cases (e.g. the DISTUTILS_USE_SDK environment variable);
> if people want to see their setup supported, AND ARE WILLING TO
> CONTRIBUTE: more power to them.

Yes, but I believe its also important to solicit feedback on the best way to
achieve their aims.  In this particular case, I believe it would have been
misguided for me to simply check in whatever was necessary to have distutils
work from the PCBuild8 directory.  I hope it is clear that I am willing to
contribute the outcome of these discussions...

Cheers,

Mark