python package using a Fortran library

[Daniel J. Luke]

On Jul 17, 2013, at 9:56 AM, Brandon Allbery <allbery.b at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 6:55 AM, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 2013, at 04:28, Michael Wimmer <wimmer.mike at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> If the build does not respect the compiler choice, that is a bug that should be fixed.
> >
> > thanks for your answer, I understand that this is how it should be done
> > in general. However, what I run into is a general problem, as this is a
> > python setuptools behavior: By default, they always want to use the
> > compiler that python itself has been compiled with (I assume to avoid
> > inconsistencies).
> 
> If that is how Python in MacPorts behaves, then I would call that a bug in Python in MacPorts that needs to be fixed. Ports should use the compiler indicated by configure.compiler. Anything else is wrong.
> 
> Letting (for forcing!) a language extension use a different compiler from the base language results in extensions that won't load in the base. (True of Python, Perl, and Tcl at minimum; also likely GHC.) You are correct in the general case but not in this particular special case, and the Python and Perl extension mechanisms force the compiler for very good reasons.

Yep, it should mostly work in general - but it's not something that anyone really tests (as far as I know) and it's likely that upstream language developers wouldn't want to spend time fixing any bugs that we might find.

Also, I don't particularly want to have to spend a bunch of time chasing down these kind of bugs (see http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2013-06-28-anatomy-of-a-compiler-bug.html for and example of the kind of thing that we might end up having to deal with).

--
Daniel J. Luke                                                                   
+========================================================+                        
| *---------------- dluke at geeklair.net ----------------* |                          
| *-------------- http://www.geeklair.net -------------* |                          
+========================================================+                        
|   Opinions expressed are mine and do not necessarily   |                          
|          reflect the opinions of my employer.          |                          
+========================================================+