Binary release process

Hi,

First of all let me apologize for the problems we have been

seeing with the binaries as of late. Frankly the root of the problem

might be my detachment from the matplotlib source for some time.

Unfortunately due to my time constraints, this won’t be changing soon.

I used to think being somewhat on the outside helped me keep the ease

of the build process in check. This gap has apparently grown too

wide.

I appreciate that this is a difficult task and that you have plenty of other

responsibilities, and appreciate your effort. However, I’ve been trying to

get to the bottom of why the windows installer is overwriting configobj and

I could use some feedback from you. I really need to know whether you delete

the build/ directory before creating a new installer.

Moving ahead, python 2.6 and 3.0 are going to pose new challenges

since they require new versions of visual studio I do not have access

to.

I think 2.6 and 3.0 were both compiled with Visual C++ 2008, and so the free

Visual C++ 2008 express can be used to create extension modules.

The express edition can only produce 32 bit binaries, but I guess this

is better than nothing.

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express) :

“natively compiling 64-bit applications through the IDE is not supported. If the freely available Windows SDK
is installed, 64-bit applications can be built on the command line
using the x64 cross-compiler (Cl.exe) supplied with the SDK.” The documentation at python.org does not indicate whether or not it is possible to cross-compile with the express edition if the Windows SDK is installed (http://docs.python.org/distutils/builtdist.html#cross-compiling-on-windows)

I the past

I have built and distributed extension modules built with mingw32 on windows

XP, but I have not been able to put together a working mingw32/msys on a

64-bit windows vista machine. This is my only windows computer, so it looks

like I will only be supporting py2.6 in the near future.

Since numpy 1.3 (probably out January 2009) will start supporting

python 2.6 and official Python 3k support for numpy is currently

anticipated not for a while I would guess Python 3k support is a

non-issue for now. OTOH the many Python libraries depending on numpy

might make Python 3K support happen sooner.

Last I heard, the numpy folks think py-3 support is at least a year out.

···

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Michael Abshoff <mabshoff@…564…> wrote:

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Darren Dale <dsdale24@…149…> wrote:

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Charlie Moad <cwmoad@…149…> wrote:

Hi,

<SNIP>

The express edition can only produce 32 bit binaries, but I guess this
is better than nothing.

According to wikipedia
(Microsoft Visual Studio Express - Wikipedia) :

"natively compiling 64-bit applications through the IDE is not supported. If
the freely available Windows SDK is installed, 64-bit applications can be
built on the command line using the x64 cross-compiler (Cl.exe) supplied
with the SDK." The documentation at python.org does not indicate whether or
not it is possible to cross-compile with the express edition if the Windows
SDK is installed
(http://docs.python.org/distutils/builtdist.html#cross-compiling-on-windows)

Ok, I didn't know that. There is also some movement with the 64 bit
MinGW port, so hopefully in 2009 one might see a stable release there,
too.

> I the past
> I have built and distributed extension modules built with mingw32 on
> windows
> XP, but I have not been able to put together a working mingw32/msys on a
> 64-bit windows vista machine. This is my only windows computer, so it
> looks
> like I will only be supporting py2.6 in the near future.

Since numpy 1.3 (probably out January 2009) will start supporting
python 2.6 and official Python 3k support for numpy is currently
anticipated not for a while I would guess Python 3k support is a
non-issue for now. OTOH the many Python libraries depending on numpy
might make Python 3K support happen sooner.

Last I heard, the numpy folks think py-3 support is at least a year out.

Yes, I have seen that figure thrown around on the list last week, too.
The reasoning seems to be that it would take until 2010 until "major"
distributions shipped Py3K, but given the dependency of many libs I
would be surprised if there wasn't enough pressure earlier to get this
fixed. Given that numpy uses the Python C API directly this might be
more work than some people think. In the end it would probably greatly
help if the same codebase could support Python 2.x and Py3K at the
same time, but we will see.

Slightly OT: What is the preferred way to submit bug fixes? The sf
tracker? I have two tiny build fixes for 0.98.3 (that also apply to
0.98.5) that fix the build on FreeBSD 7 and also works around some
tcl/tl detection strangeness. Both patches are one liners to
setupext.py.

Cheers,

Michael

···

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Darren Dale <dsdale24@...149...> wrote:

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Michael Abshoff <mabshoff@...564...> > wrote:

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Darren Dale <dsdale24@...149...> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Charlie Moad <cwmoad@...149...> wrote:

Even though it's not a FAQ, we have a FAQ entry for it :slight_smile:

  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq/howto_faq.html#submit-a-patch

JDH

···

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 8:31 PM, Michael Abshoff <mabshoff@...564...> wrote:

Slightly OT: What is the preferred way to submit bug fixes? The sf
tracker? I have two tiny build fixes for 0.98.3 (that also apply to