[Bf-python] Python in Blender for Pycon

[Peter Shinners]

I've been discussing with several commercial vendors about how Python is 
built into their applications. Currently we've been focused on how 
Python is being compiled and which versions, compilers, UCS, and other 
specifics are chosen. Being open source, Blender works a little 
different. Hopefully any gurus can answer all or some of the questions 
below.


The Windows binaries do include Python. Is this a prebuilt version of 
Python you deliver, or are you compiling your own? If you are compiling 
your own, are you matching the compiler used by Python on Windows, or 
does this match the compiler that builds the rest of Blender?

On Unix platforms Blender gets compiled against a version of Python. At 
startup, some attempt is made to find the Python libraries, although the 
executable link is linked to the python .so. What is happening here when 
Blender prints this at startup?
"""
Compiled with Python version 2.6.2.
Checking for installed Python... got it!
"""

Blender looks like it will compile against a wide range of Python 
versions, going back at least as far as Python 2.3 in the lastest 2.49b? 
Is much effort required to support this, or does is the api flexible 
enough to not worry?

Blender seems to include a large selection of Python plugins to run. I 
am seeing them from the Scripts interface panel, but can't find any 
correlating Python files anywhere. Where are these Python scripts 
deployed and how are they registered in the interface like this?

Thanks, Blender gurus!