[Python-ideas] Rewriting the build system (part 2)

[Ned Deily]

In article <loom.20150316T192520-981 at post.gmane.org>,
 Stefan Krah <stefan at bytereef.org> wrote:
> That's just not true.  Also, the small build issue that triggered
> this thread is already tracked here:
> 
>    http://bugs.python.org/issue22625
>  
> It seems more productive to me to fix that rather than rewrite the
> build system.  Users don't have an unlimited tolerance for pointless
> churn.

+10

How many different platforms and configurations on each platform do we 
explicitly or implicitly support today for current CPython 2 and CPython 
3 releases?  I don't know (and I should since I help release them) but 
it's clearly at least in the dozens.  We do not currently have formal 
tests or test platforms (e.g. buildbots) for many of them like we should 
and it would be a monumental undertaking to try to migrate the current 
build system to something substantially different.  It's fine to let off 
steam about frustrations with build systems but talking about it here is 
not gonna cause it to change.  And it won't change unless someone (or, 
more likely, some big company) is willing to invest an enormous effort 
in people time and machine resources to do so.  Stefan's suggestion is 
much more practical.  Along with it, if someone is motivated, better 
documenting the current processes for cross-compilation and which pairs 
of build/target systems are supported would be a welcome and extremely 
useful improvement.  Much of what is there today for cross-compilation 
has slipped in over the years with little discussion or documentation.  
It's easy to break because it's not always clear how it is supposed to 
work and because it isn't regularly tested.

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org