On 22/05/2017 01:17, Gregory Ewing wrote:
I think what Bart is saying is that the Python developers should provide an amalgamated source file that's pre-configured for Windows, so that someone who wants to compile on Windows doesn't have to deal with all the complexities of the general build system.
The 'one-file' idea is one approach to simplifying the building of open-source applications. Probably, it's more suited to those who just want to try out, or use, a bit of software.
(The GMP library, for example, has no official binary releases. You have to build from source, and I think it has an even longer configure script than CPython! The end-result is a single .dll file of a few hundred KB.
Even if I could get a binary myself, if I make use of it as a dependency, anyone building my software would also have to acquire it and build it from source. And it might not work. Result: I don't use gmp.)
For CPython, yes, the files are all over the place, but that wouldn't be so bad if at least it was possible to just compile them and link in the various bits. But all sorts of other things are going on, and that info is not provided.
While that might be possible, I don't see what how it would be of much use. You're not going to want to edit such a "source" file, so its only use would be to install as-is. But if that's all you want, you might as well use a binary installer.
A one-file CPython might be under 250Kloc, not too bad to play with, but I'm not sure it would work as there are multiple binary files to build, not a single executable. (Maybe one source per executable, but that would still need discrete, shared headers otherwise there would be duplication.)
I think it would be on the cards to have a streamlined CPython distribution that only had a C compiler as a requirement, and nothing else. Unless I'm missing something.
-- Bartc -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
