> The (official) tutorial he eventually lands on ... is actually a pretty good primer. That tutorial you linked to does not describe how to handle the issue t

> The (official) tutorial he eventually lands on ... is actually a pretty good primer. That tutorial you linked to does not describe how to handle the issue the author faced in building a Python binary extension. It doesn't even describe how to build a C/C++/whatever extension. At the bottom of the page the text "Read about Packaging binary extensions" points to https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/packaging-binary-extensions/ https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/packaging-bina... which starts "Page Status: Incomplete" and "Last Reviewed: 2013-12-08", and contains a number of "FIXME" sections. (Parts have been updated during the decade, but the contents of the page do not instill confidence that it's up-to-date.) That documentation still doesn't show how to configure the extension, instead linking to https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html . That in turn links to https://docs.python.org/3/extending/building.html https://docs.python.org/3/extending/building.html which links to https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/setuptools.html https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/setuptools.html which takes you to https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/userguide/ext_modules.html https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/userguide/ext_modules.h... showing how to configure your setup.py. However, unlike using setup.py directly, where you can hack setup.py's argv, that documentation does not show any way to specify compile-time parameters, "like --system-zstd and --rust-backend as a way to influence the build". Which is what the author wants to do.