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

[anatoly techtonik]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 7:31 PM, Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 6:24 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> "Autotools has reached the Chandrasekhar mass limit of software and
>> become a black hole of suck that consumes endless hours of bright
>> peoples’ time without any good result. It is well past time for it to
>> die." (c) "Autotools must die", ESR. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1877
>>
>> I couldn't sum up this better. It looks even worse from Windows machine.
>
> Is it even used for building Python on Windows (for the "normal" python.org
> builds)?

There was some success with MinGW toolchain, but I am not tracking if it was
integrated into official source. The FUD was that compiled extensions are not
compatible between MSVC builds and MinGW builds, but I could not confirm
that. If I understand correctly, the incompatibility is only for C++ programs,
because of strange SEH strategy and proprietary name mangling.

> But to miss-paraphrase Winston Churchill [1]:
>
> "Autotools is the worst build system except for all the others."
>
> Is there really something better out there?

A lot of attempts are made, but reviewing them requires a lot of
time and effort.