[Python-Dev] Status of C compilers for Python on Windows

[Paul Moore]

On 29 October 2014 22:19, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
>> Yeah, I wondered about that. I'll work up a patch for that. But the
>> more I think about it, it really is trivial:
>
> I am reminded of an interview question I was once asked which was prefaced
> with: "Here's an easy one..."
>
> My reply was, if you know the answer, it's easy!

Yeah, I know what you mean. My take on this is that I agree it's not
easy if you don't know and can't get access to the information, but if
you can, there's very little to it.

>> - For non-free MSVC, install the appropriate version, and everything just
>> works.
>> - For Python 2.7 (32 or 64 bit), install the compiler for Python 2.7
>> package and everything just works as long as you're using setuptools.
>> - For 32 bit Python 3.2-3.4, install Visual Studio Express and
>> everything just works.
>> - For 64 bit Python 3.2-3.4, install the SDK, set some environment
>> variables, and everything just works.
>> - For Python 3.5+, install the current Visual Studion Express and
>> everything just works.
>
>
> I would suggest
>   - where to get these packages

Conceded. Working out how to point people at stuff on MSDN is a
challenge, things seem to move around. Maybe Steve Dower could help
here with canonical URLs for some of them (IIRC, he provided one for
the VS compilers for Python 2.7 package when it was announced).

For the paid versions, I'm going to assume that anyone who paid for a
compiler and doesn't know where their copy is, probably can't be
helped ;-)

And of course there's the awkward problem that VS 2010 Express is
unsupported and therefore no longer available from *any* official
location. I can't solve that, sadly.

>   - where to get any dependencies

There are none. I could state that explicitly, I guess.

>   - any options to [not] specify during install

I'll have to go through the installs again just to be sure, but I'm
pretty certain "Select the default for everything" is correct.

>   - what environment variables to what value

None, except for the SDK which I did say I needed to test out and
cover in more detail.

>   - where one should be at when one starts the compile process

I don't understand this. It's just "pip wheel foo" to build a wheel
for foo (which will be downloaded), or "pip wheel ." or  "python
setup.py bdist_wheel" as you prefer for a local package. That's
standard distutils/setuptools/pip extension building. I don't propose
to cover that, just how to *set up* the environment.

With the sole exception of the SDK case, once installed, everything
just works everywhere, nothing to set up, no special environment to
configure. Start up a new cmd or powershell console (or use the one
you're already in) and go. Maybe Unix users expect more complexity
because it's not that simple on Unix? But I thought it was - install
the appropriate OS packages and that's it?

> and, of course, a gotchas section for uncommon but frustrating things that
> might go wrong.

Hmm, I see your point here, but I'm not sure what I might include. You
*can* get in a mess [1] but generally I don't as I'm an experienced
Windows user. I also don't want to offer to debug and fix everyone's
problems in getting things set up, so offering to collect and document
"common issues" that I've seen is impractical. Maybe a section
entitled "Common Issues and Their Solutions", with some placeholder
text saying "If you have any issues installing any of the compiler
packages mentioned, please document what went wrong and how to fix it,
and submit a PR!" would do?

> And thanks for doing this!

No problem!

Paul

[1] I once spent a *long* time fighting failed installs of the Windows
SDK. Turns out it was because I was trying to install a 32-bit SDK on
a 64-bit machine (doh!), and the installer really doesn't like that
:-( About all I could say to document that is "Read the instructions
properly" and "I'm sorry that the MS installers fail really badly when
faced with relatively obvious idiot-user errors, but I can't do
anything about it :-("