Which compiler will Python 2.5 / Windows (Intel) be built with?

[Chris Lambacher]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 08:36:21PM +0200, Jarek Zgoda wrote:
> Fredrik Lundh napisa?(a):
> 
> > hint: most people who provide third-party extensions to Python support
> > more than just the latest Python version...
> 
> We're happy with your support for us, Windows users, but you are an
> exception to the general rule of providing only sources.
> 
> That's the reason we are fragile on compiler. If the core will be buid
> with "non-generally-available" compiler, we would end up with searching
> for person willing to compile a library for us, if the MinGW way won't
> succeed. I'd like to see core compiled with latest available "free"
> toolkit compiler available, as previous versions can not be downloaded
> from provider's home.
There is only one extension that I have ever found that I could not build with
MingW.  That one was the win32all extensions.  The free (beer) compiler that
Microsoft provides did not work for that either since you MFC.

There should be no problem building extensions with MinGW unless you are
writing an extension to an extension that was written in C++ and distributed
only in object form(ie no source), or the extension makes use of the c
runtime (fopen, printf etc).

That said it would be nice if the barrier to entry on compiling Python windows
was reduced by making the effort to moving to gcc as the compiler.  Given that
this argument has come up several times on both c.l.p and the python-dev list
with no one biting, I would say that it is not likely to happen any time soon.

I also seem to remember a discussion about it being possible to compile python
with VS2005, but you would then be responsible for your own build of python,
plus building any extension modules you need.

-Chris