[Bf-python] python 2.4

[Willian Padovani Germano]

Hi all,

Switching to a new Python version is really not an easy decision, first 
of all because it comes standard in Linux, other unices (?) and OS X.  
If we were to upgrade to 2.4 soon, the majority of users would have to 
upgrade, too (*), and have to deal with a bunch of rpm dependencies, 
etc.  But having a testing build with 2.4, let's say one week after each 
release from 2.37 till we upgrade, might be enough to please users ...

(*) Unlike on Win, which comes with an extra package of standard 
modules, for other platforms a full Python install is required even to 
run many of the bundled scripts.  Again, we ship extra modules for Win 
because for it the Python interpreter built into Blender has many more 
statically built modules and also because we consider Python a standard 
component outside Win).

So for the 2.2 -> 2.3 move we waited until most distros out there had 
new releases using 2.3, a point where using 2.2 for Blender became a 
nuisance for many users.  This was the main reason to upgrade, 2.2 was 
considerably old (we changed when Python was in 2.3.3 already).

Chris: back before the 2.2->2.3 move, I was already compiling my local 
version with 2.3.  There was an easily fixed crash in BPY_interface.c 
and after that both would link and work fine.  If you send us the errors 
you get while trying to link against 2.2 we may be able to find what is 
wrong.  If bpython has anything not compatible with 2.2 it's probably 
something minor.

Campbell J Barton wrote:

> Out of interest, would there be anything more todo then change the 2.3 
> to 2.4 in the scons/Makefiles?
> Im sure there would be, but just wondering.

It can be as trivial as downloading 2.4 and getting rid of 2.3, just 
that, unless you get a crash : ).  Scons will find the installed version 
(if you want / need to keep more than one Python version, use the PYTHON 
system var to point to the python executable you want linked, before 
compiling Blender).  On Linux I used to compile Python's source (with 
--enable-shared) and install it in /usr/local, then set 
PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python2.3.  That was enough to compile Blender 
with scons.  And this way I still had 2.2 working for the rest of the 
system, no need to mess with rpm dependencies.

-- 
Willian