[Scons-users] [scons-users] Support for Python 3?

[Luc Bourhis]

Hi,

I would like to comment on this thread as a user of SCons. The important point is the following: we have our own custom configuration system which is totally independent of SCons. It is called from many places in our code, and from many SConscript's as well. Thus if you were to make SCons Python 3 only, then we would need to move our entire codebase to Python 3. This is not a move we plan even in the mid term as this would involve sinking a lot of resources into software development resulting in zero new features, and that is exceedingly difficult to justify to the institutions that provides the academic grants funding those projects of ours.

For the record, we use it as the build system of the CCTBX and Phenix project which are respectively a toolbox and a suite of programs used in crystallography and especially protein crystallography. To give you a perspective, we have 114 SConscript's for a total of 4081 lines. Finally, we support all versions of Python since 2.3 for a large part of the project, with a few sections relying on Python 2.7. As a result the deliverable shipped to the final users embed a Python 2.7 interpreter, which has worked very well for us.

Best wishes,

Luc Bourhis