This patch moves the MS_WINDOWS code from 
posixmodule.c into ntmodule.c. The OS/2 code is left in 
posixmodule.c.

I believe this patch significantly improves readability of 
both modules (posix and nt), even though it adds a 
slight code duplication. It also gives Windows 
developers the chance to adjust the implementation 
better to the Win32 API without fear of breaking the 
POSIX versions.

Attached are three files: the ntmodule.c source code, 
the posixmodule.c diff, and the pcbuild diff. Since the 
patches will outdate quickly, I'd appreciate if that patch 
could be accepted or rejected quickly.

Randomly assigning to Tim.

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I'm -0, so assigning to Guido for another opinion.  I expect 
this will actually make it harder to keep the os interface 
consistent and working across platforms; e.g., somebody 
adds an os function in one module but forgets to add it in the 
other (likely because they don't even know it exists); a 
docstring repair shows up in one but not both; a largefile fix in 
one doesn't get reflected in the other; etc.  Apart from the 
massive Windows popen pain, there are actually more 
embedded PYOS_OS2 #ifdefs in posixmodule.

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I'm +0.5 on this. Can you bring this up on python-dev to see
if there are different viewpoints? I think the resulting
code will be easier to maintain; new stuff added at this
point is more likely to be unique to Unix anyway (or unique
to Windows).

I wonder if the os2 code shouldn't be moved to its own file
as well (I think Andrew MacIntyre maintains that port, right?).

There are still a bunch of #ifdefs in the nt code. Are those
really variable across Windows versions or compilers? If
not, I'd suggest to expand those.

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I too am -0 on this, for the exact reasons Tim gives.

I think a better strategy would be to:
* Move most of the #ifdef cruft at the top of the source file to 
pyconfig.h and/or pyport.h, making these "HAVE_" macros 
consistent with the rest of the HAVE_ cruft.  Most #defines in 
this module them move simply to HAVE_FEATURE rather 
then IS_SPECIFIC_OS

* Move popen, and possibly one or 2 other Windows specific 
functions to a separate source file.  Possibly repeat for OS/2, 
but it is not clear there are huge OS/2 slabs of code that 
would make it worthwhile.

This would be a good start, reflects the existing 
posixmodule.c comment:
/* Various compilers have only certain posix functions */
/* XXX Gosh I wish these were all moved into pyconfig.h */

and does not preclude a more aggressive split in the future.

However, my opinions on this are not strong enough to try 
and -1 it :)

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Ok, I withdraw this patch.