Compilation options can cause problems if the python code is not configured correctly

[rowleya]

It is possible to compile the C code and then have the python code generate data structures for the wrong compilation option, the most obvious being the master population table. We should do something about checking this on run e.g. instead of just checking a magic number we might check for the various compile options that python thinks we are using.

[andrewgait]

I'm sure we've all done a variant of this in the past - e.g. switched branches and forgot to recompile the C code. I'm not sure that there's necessarily an easy way of detecting this from the python side (aside from what generally happens now whereby there's usually a run-time failure of some description).

[alan-stokes]

there is a possible solution. auto compilation either all the time, or based on the time stamps of the files. when ya switch branch, the modified timestamp could flag to tell you when ya changed and force a recompile.