Python loading library containing embedded python...

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Alex Martelli wrote:
 > I believe the python core developers who do develop on Windows have not
> even tried VS 2005 and have no intention of so doing for the foreseeable
> future.

That is not true. I have already tried it. Many others did, too, and
found that Microsoft managed to break ISO C compliance in VS 2005
(in order to make it "safe").
The Python trunk has a work-around for that problem.

> Unfortunate -- as a python core developer myself, while I
> mostly use MacOSX, and secondarily Linux, I'd be happy to lend a hand
> occasionally with Windows *IF* I could use VS 2005, which I can get for
> free, rather than any product I'd have to pay for.

You can use VS2005 just fine. You have to convert the project files,
and then you are done.

> The choice of what Windows environment is best is obviously up to those
> python core developers who DO use Windows day-in, day-out

Not really. Users formulate all kinds of demands, and we listen to them.
Name an arbitrary Windows compiler, and somebody will have proposed to
use that as the compiler for the official Windows binaries. Mention that
you are going to stick with the compiler you use, and somebody will
complain. Mention that you are going to change compilers, and somebody
will complain. You can't win.

> I don't know of any such plans, sadly.  You may want to take up the
> subject on python-dev: few core developers routinely follow this list
> (or newsgroup, whatever;-).  If you volunteer to port the development
> environment for Windows to X, and can show that the performance with
> whatever compiler X offers is better than VS's, you may stand a chance.
> Good luck... you'll need quite a bit;-).

I personally don't care much about the performance of the compiler.
For my own development, I care about the tool integration, in particular
about the debugger (I like the MSVC debugger quite a lot). For the
Python project, I care about the compilers people want to use to
build extensions with.

For example, you can't really build COM-based extensions with cygwin,
so if the official compiler would be cygwin, somebody would have to
find out how to build PythonWin (in addition, PythonWin also has
a strong dependency on MSVCRT).

Regards,
Martin