[Python-Dev] Python should be easily compilable on Windows with MinGW

Fri Feb 26 13:16:19 EST 2016

You mean honestly pointing out what would happen with a suggestion? It 
is a horrifically bad idea.  I didn't say they were bad people.

On 2/26/2016 13:14, Brian Curtin wrote:
> The attitude in these responses is counter productive and not really
> how it works on this list.
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 1:10 PM, Alexander Walters
> <tritium-list at sdamon.com> wrote:
>> Ok, fine.  Bring a windows build bot online.  And also take on the support
>> burden of guiding people to which version of which compiler you use for each
>> of the currently supported python versions.  And go ahead and write the pep
>> to change how wheel distributions work (which will effectively kill them, so
>> yeah, good side benefit there.)
>>
>> Want to kill python on windows for anything that needs a c extension?  go
>> ahead, release one version of python with 2 ABIs.
>>
>> What do I know.
>>
>>
>> On 2/26/2016 13:05, Dan Stromberg wrote:
>>> But what do you really think?
>>>
>>> IMO, windows builds probably should do both visual studio and mingw.
>>> That is, there probably should be two builds on windows, since there's
>>> no clear consensus about which to use.
>>>
>>> I certainly prefer mingw over visual studio - and I have adequate
>>> bandwidth for either.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 9:55 AM, Alexander Walters
>>> <tritium-list at sdamon.com> wrote:
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>> Visual Studio is a solid compiler suit, mingw is a jenky mess, especially
>>>> when you try and move to 64bit (where I don't think there is one true
>>>> version of mingw).  I'm sorry that Visual Studio makes it very hard for
>>>> you
>>>> to contribute, but changing THE compiler of the distribution from the
>>>> platform compiler, especially when we FINALLY got a stable abi with it,
>>>> is
>>>> going to be a non starter.
>>>>
>>>> Compiling on MinGW for your own edification is fine, but that's not the
>>>> build platform for windows python, nor should it be. Contributions are,
>>>> and
>>>> should continue to be, tested against Visual Studio.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2/26/2016 05:12, Mathieu Dupuy wrote:
>>>>> Hi.
>>>>> I am currently working on adding some functionality on a standard
>>>>> library module (http://bugs.python.org/issue15873). The Python part
>>>>> went fine, but now I have to do the C counterpart, and I have ran into
>>>>> in several problems, which, stacked up, are a huge obstacle to easily
>>>>> contribute further. Currently, despite I could work, I can't go
>>>>> further
>>>>> on my patch.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am currently working in very limited network, CPU and time
>>>>> ressources* which are quite uncommon in the western world, but are
>>>>> much less in the rest of the world. I have a 2GB/month mobile data
>>>>> plan and a 100KB/s speed. For the C part of my patch, I should
>>>>> download Visual Studio. The Express Edition 2015 is roughly 9GB. I
>>>>> can't afford that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I downloaded Virtualbox and two Linux netinstall (Ubuntu 15.10 and
>>>>> Fedora 23). Shortly, I couldn't get something working quickly and
>>>>> simply (quickly = less than 2 hours, downloading time NOT included,
>>>>> which is anyway way too already much). What went wrong and why it went
>>>>> wrong could be a whole new thread and is outside of the scope of this
>>>>> message.
>>>>> Let me precise this : at my work I use many virtualbox instances
>>>>> automatically fired and run in parallel to test new deployments and
>>>>> run unittests. I like this tool,
>>>>> but despite its simple look, it (most of the time) can not be used
>>>>> simply by a profane. The concepts it requires you to understand are
>>>>> not intuitive at first sight and there is *always* a thing that go
>>>>> wrong (guest additions, mostly).(for example : Ubuntu and Virtualbox
>>>>> shipped for a moment a broken version of mount.vboxsf, preventing
>>>>> sharing folder to mount. Despite it's fixed, the broken releases
>>>>> spread everywhere and you may encounter them a lot in various Ubuntu
>>>>> and Virtualbox version. I downloaded the last versions of both and I
>>>>> am yet infected. https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12879). I could do
>>>>> whole new thread on why you can't ask newcomers to use Virtualbox
>>>>> (currently, at least).
>>>>>
>>>>> I ran into is a whole patch set to make CPython compile on MinGW
>>>>> (https://bugs.python.org/issue3871#msg199695). But it is not denying
>>>>> it's very experimental, and I know I would again spent useless hours
>>>>> trying to get it work rather than joyfully improving Python, and
>>>>> that's exactly what I do not want to happen.
>>>>>
>>>>> Getting ready to contribute to CPython pure python modules from an
>>>>> standard, average mr-everyone Windows PC for a beginner-to-medium
>>>>> contributor only require few megabytes of internet and few minutes of
>>>>> his
>>>>> time: getting a tarball of CPython sources (or cloning the github
>>>>> CPython
>>>>> mirror)**, a basic text editor and msys-git. The step further, if doing
>>>>> some -even basic- C code is required, implies downloading 9GB of Visual
>>>>> Studio and countless hours for it to be ready to use.
>>>>> I think downloading the whole Visual Studio suite is a huge stopper to
>>>>> contribute further for an average medium-or-below-contributor.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think (and I must not be the only one since CPython is to be moved
>>>>> to github), that barriers to contribute to CPython should be set to
>>>>> the lowest.
>>>>> Of course my situation is a bit special but I think it represents
>>>>> daily struggle of a *lot* of non-western programmer (at least for
>>>>> limited internet)(even here in Australia, landline limited internet
>>>>> connections are very common).
>>>>> It's not a big deal if the MinGW result build is twenty time slower or
>>>>> if some of the most advanced modules can't be build. But everyone
>>>>> programmer should be able to easily make some C hacks and get them to
>>>>> work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hoping you'll be receptive to my pleas,
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> * I am currently picking fruits in the regional Australia. I live in a
>>>>> van
>>>>> and have internet through with smartphone through an EDGE connection. I
>>>>> can
>>>>> plug the laptop in the farm but not in the van.
>>>>> ** No fresh programmer use mercurial unless he has a gun pointed on his
>>>>> head.
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>>>>
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