pygame and python 2.5

[Steve Holden]

mensanator at aol.com wrote:
> On Feb 11, 1:35�am, Steve Holden <s... at holdenweb.com> wrote:
[...]
>>>> After all, they have already given freely and generously, and if they choose
>>>> not to give more on top of that, it's really up to them.
>>> Right. Get people to commit and then abandon them. Nice.
>> Anyone who committed to Python did so without being battered by a
>> multi-million dollar advertising campaign.
> 
> Multi-million dollar ad campaigns mean nothing to me.
> I committed to Python because it's a great language.
> I've dabbled in perl, Visual BASIC, UBASIC, REXX, Java,
> Scheme, C and C++ but Python is the one I use.
> 
Yes, but your decision must surely have been an informed one, and there 
must surely be reasons why Python remains your choice.

>> The Python Software
>> Foundation has only recently dipped its toes in the advocacy waters,
>> with results that are still under evaluation. And the use of the
>> Microsoft "free" VC6 SDK was never a part of the "official" means of
>> producing Python or its extensions, it was a community-developed
>> solution to the lack of availability of a free VS-compatible compilation
>> system for extension modules.
>>
>> I agree that there are frustrations involved with maintaining extension
>> modules on the Windows platform without having a copy of Visual Studio
>> (of the correct version) available. One of the reasons Python still uses
>> an outdated version of VS is to avoid forcing people to upgrade. Any
>> such decision will have fallout.
> 
> Such as anyone who tries to get in the game late.
> 
I'm afraid it does seem to work out like that, yes.

>> An update is in the works for those
>> using more recent releases,
> 
> That's good news, although the responsible thing
> to do was not relaease version 2.5 until such issues
> are resolved.
> 
Well that would be an issue for the release team. I'm not sure what 
Anthony Baxter (the release manager) would have to say in response to 
this point.

>> but that won't help users who don't have
>> access to Visual Studio.
> 
> That can be solved by throwing money at the problem.
> But money doesn't help when the solution is on the
> far side of the moon.
> 
I see your problem, but I don't know what I can do to help you. There 
were also, as I remember it, issues with the updated version of Visual 
Studio being non-conformant with standards in some significant way, but 
I never took part in the discussions on those issues.

>>>> Yes, it's
>>>> occasionally very frustrating to the rest of us, but that's life.
>>> As the Kurds are well aware.
>> I really don't think you help your argument by trying to draw parallels
>> between the problems of compiler non-availability and those of a
>> population subject to random genocide.
> 
> You missed the point of the analogy.
> 
Perhaps because it wasn't a very good one?

> The US government suggested to the oppressed tribes
> in Iraq that they should rise up and overthrow
> Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War.
> And what did the US government do when they rose up?
> Nothing. They were left to twist in the wind.
> 
>> Try to keep things in perspective, please.
> 
> See if you can see the similarity.
> 
> I buy into Python. I spend a lot of effort
> developing a math library based on GMPY to use
> in my research. I discover a bug in GMPY and
> actually go to a lot of effort and solve it.
> But _I_ can't even use it because I've been
> left to twist in the wind by the fact that
> Python 2.5 for Windows was built with an
> obsolete compiler that's not even available.
> 
> Luckily, unlike the Kurds, my situation had
> a happy ending, someone else compiled the fixed
> GMPY source and made a 2.5 Windows version
> available. But can anyone say what will happen
> the next time?
> 
Presumably not. I presume you have been reporting your bugs through the 
Sourceforge project to keep the developers in touch with the issues you 
have found? Normally a package's maintainers will produce updated 
installers, but this behaviour is unreliable and (no pun intended) 
patchy sometimes.

>>>> The best I feel I can do is raise these things on occasion,
>>>> on the off-chance that I manage to catch the attention of
>>>> someone who is
>>>> altruistic, knowledgeable, and who has some spare time on
>>>> their hands!
>>> Someone who, say, solved the memory leak in the GMPY
>>> divm() function even though he had no way of compiling
>>> the source code?
>>> Just think of what such an altruistic, knowedgeable
>>> person could do if he could use the current VC compiler
>>> or some other legally available compiler.
>> Your efforts would probably be far better spent trying to build a
>> back-end for mingw or some similar system into Python's development
>> system, to allow Python for Windows to be built on a regular rather than
>> a one-off basis using a completely open source tool chain.
> 
> No, as I said elsewhere, I'm not a software developer,
> I'm an amateur math researcher. My efforts are best spent
> as an actual end user to find and report bugs that the
> developers never see. Remember, a programmer, because he
> wrote it, only _thinks_ he knows how the program works.
> Whereas I, the user, _know_ how it works.
> 
>> The fact that the current maintainers of the Windows side of Python
>> choose to use a commercial tool to help them isn't something I am going
>> to try and second-guess. To do so would be to belittle efforts I would
>> have no way of duplicating myself, and I have far too much respect for
>> those efforts to do so.
> 
> And I respect those efforts too. What I don't respect
> is irresponsible behaviour.
> 
>> There are published ways to build extension modules for Windows using
>> mingw, by the way - have you tried any of them?
> 
> Yeah, and got nowhere.
> 
>> It's much harder than sniping on a newsgroup,
> 
> That figures. You try and contribute and you get
> accused of being a troll.
> 
I wasn't accusing you of being a troll, rather bemoaning your (in my 
opinion) less-than-constructive tone. The points you raise are 
important, and I do feel that there ought to be easier solutions for 
people in your position.

>> but you earn rather more kudos.
> 
> Guess what kudos I got for solving the GMPY divm()
> problem? None. How much effort would it have been
> to mention my contribution in the source code
> comments (as was the case for other contributers)?
> Not that I'm bitter, after all, I'm altruistic.
> 
I'm sure if you've made a contribution to the code you only have to ask 
for your name to be added as a contributor to be mentioned in the source.

> By the way, on the sci.math newsgroup I promote
> Python every chance I get. One fellow thanked me
> profusely for recommending Python & GMPY and asked
> for some help with a program he was having problems
> with. We worked it out fine but his problem made me
> suspect there may be more bugs in GMPY. What's my
> motivation for tracking them down?
> 
The satisfaction of a job well done? What's my motivation for acting as 
a director of the Python Software Foundation when I get accusations of 
irresponsibility? Anyway, thanks for taking the time to help maintain gmpy.

This thread is starting to make me think that there's a case to be made 
for somehow providing supported build facilities for third-party 
extension modules.

This wouldn't be a simple project, but since there's a Windows buildbot 
for Python there's no reason why the same couldn't be done for 
extensions. I'll raise this with the PSF and see what the response is: 
then your carping will at least have had some positive effect ;-)

Stick with it, and let's try to make things better.

regards
  Steve
-- 
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