[Bf-committers] solving the issues of switching to python 2.4 on Os X for next release

[Willian Padovani Germano]

Joseph Gilbert wrote:
> Willian Padovani Germano wrote:
>> This made the Windows Python23.zip file small. To have the equivalent 
>> functionality for others we'd need to include many more files.
>>
> It's not a horrible idea but it sure would make blender's installation 
> much larger :( I compressed a set of .pyc's in the /lib directory and 
> got 11 megs of files (just top level .pyc's in the lib directory not the 
> sub-packages).

The files in Python would basically be the same already bundled with 
Windows, with a couple changes for system specific parts. The .pyd 
(dynamic C lib) file(s) included are also only for Windows. The added 
weight would come from there: dynamic C libs (.so under Linux). As I 
said, Windows has math, time, etc. statically linked in the interpreter. 
Under Unix-like systems these are dynamically linked.

> Advantage: Every platform would be running a python2.4 emulation. Same 
> number of distrubutions of blender we have now.
> Disadvantage: It's not a full install - some non-builtins would probably 
> still be missing. OSXers will still be trying to set their PYTHONPATH to 
> access 'user installed' modules. The blender installation would increase 
> by somewhere around 10megs is my guess.

Much less, but still something to consider. Anyway, offering minimal 
bundles for other systems -- as Stephen also respectfully suggested ;) 
-- is a valid alternative that we should evaluate and discuss. Since 
this can mean a meg or more, would be valid for as long as Blender 
stayed with Py 2.4 and isn't needed for users already using 2.4, 
offering as separate downloads would be better than bundling with 
Blender, imo.

-- 
Willian