On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 2:03 AM, Ulrich Berning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Gregory P. Smith wrote: > >> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Ulrich Berning >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> >>> As long as the ctypes extension doesn't build on major Un*x platforms >>> (AIX, >>> HP-UX), I don't like to see ctypes dependend modules included into the >>> stdlib. Please keep the stdlib as portable as possible. >>> >> >> Nice in theory but ctypes already works on at least the top 3 popular >> platforms. Lets not hold Python's stdlib back because nobody who uses >> IBM and HP proprietary stuff has contributed the necessary support. >> Making nice libraries available for other platforms is a good way to >> encourage people to either pitch in and add support or consider their >> platform choices in the future. >> >> -gps >> >> > > It's not my platform choice, it's the choice of our customers. I'm not using > these platforms just for fun (in fact it isn't fun compared to Linux or > Windows). > > If porting libffi to AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris... (especially using vendor > compilers) would be an easy job, I'm sure it would have been done already.
Well, ctypes isn't simple. =) > If more and more essential packages depend on ctypes, we should make a clear > statement, that Python isn't supported any longer on platform/compiler > combinations where libffi/ctypes doesn't build. This would give me arguments > to drop support of our software on those platforms. You are mixing the stdlib in with the language in terms of what is required for Python to work, which I think is unfair. Just because some part of the stdlib isn't portable to some OS does not mean Python is not supported on that platform. If you can run a pure Python module that does not depend on any C extension, then that platform has the support needed to run Python. Everything else is extra (which is why we have modules in the stdlib only available on specific platforms). -Brett _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
