[PyKDE] ANN: SIP v4.0pre4 Released

[Phil Thompson]

SIP v4.0pre4 is now available for download at the usual place. You will need a 
current PyQt snapshot.

This version has a re-written build system - use configure.py instead of 
build.py. Current SIP v3 snapshots also include the new build system (but 
retains the old one for now in case there are problems).

The new build system has been tested on Linux, Windows and the Zaurus. 
Building static or debug versions has not yet been tested.

PyQt also has a corresponding new build system - again, use configure.py 
instead of build.py. This generates and installs a pure Python module called 
pyqtconfig that is intended to be used by the build system of other modules 
that are built on top of PyQt. Please let me know if there are other useful 
things that can be added to it.

Why have I written yet another build system?

1. I want SIP v4 to be seen as a general tool for building bindings for C and 
C++ libraries on all platforms - and not just as the tool used to build PyQt. 
This required the dependency of the old system on tmake or qmake to be 
removed.

2. The old system was difficult to maintain and was beginning to resemble a 
Perl script. The new system is self contained and written in reasonably good 
Python.

3. The new system only requires root/administrator privileges when installing.

4. The new system is completely configurable from the command line. It should 
never be necessary to hack it even if some platforms require additional 
special handling.

(BTW, those of you who watch the snapshots may have seen that I was using 
SCons at one point. This was dropped as it was introducing more problems than 
it was solving.)

Phil