Compiling Python 2.4 extensions with free VC++ Toolkit

[Peter Hansen]

Jody Burns > wrote:
> I've been wondering if there's anything on the drawing board about 
> patching distutils/msvccompiler.py so that it can compile Python 
> extensions using the free Visual C++ toolkit instead of the entire 
> Visual C++ development environment.
> 
> I know it's possible, because I was able to compile and install PyCrypto 
> 2.0 for Python 2.4 today.  I did this by commenting out the part of 
> msvccompiler that checks for VS library paths and manually adding them 
> to my LIB environment variable.
> 
> I looked through the CVS and couldn't find anything about this, although 
>  msvccompiler.py has been patched to give a better error message about 
> requiring the .NET framework if you have don't have it installed.
> 
> Your thoughts?

None, other than to note that if you and/or others were able to
solve this and make it "easy" for those less VC++-savvy, you
might significantly decrease the bar for those of us who have
not been able to get into hacking on the core of Python because
of being stuck in the MS world yet not willing to shell out more
cash to billg...  maybe, just maybe, that would get a few more
people out there reviewing patches and maybe fixing bugs.

-Peter