msvcr71.dll necessary? - Re: Which compiler will Python 2.5 / Windows (Intel) be built with?

[robert]

meyer at mesw.de wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> which compiler will Python 2.5 on Windows (Intel) be built with? I
> notice that Python 2.4 apparently has been built with the VS2003
> toolkit compiler, and I read a post from Scott David Daniels [1] where
> he said that probably the VS2003 toolkit will be used for Python 2.5
> again. However, even before the release of Python 2.5, I cannot seem to
> find many retailers around here that still carry Visual Studio 2003 ...

For me the great great problem with Python2.4's lib geometry was that 
the size of distributable app installers swelled suddenly by many megs 
with msvcr71.dll and mfc71 and codecs in core and all. Typically 
installer sizes went from 1.5MB to over 4MB for basic non-trivial apps.
Thats a show stopper still in many situations today - at least for my 
requirements.

See e.g. for an example of magnitudes: 
http://groups.google.de/group/comp.lang.python/msg/edf469a1b3dc3802
Updating to a new expensive compiler problem for extensions was secondary.

Thus I decided so far to stay at Python2.3 for longer time for most 
projects, while I'm using Python2.4+ only for local/web scripts and 
single-installation projects. The little improvements in Python2.4/2.5 
mostly don't justify their monster footprint in memory and installers.


Some questions:

* Is there a fundamental reason that the C-RTL of VC6 (which is 
pre-installed on on all Windows today) is not sufficient for current 
Python and extensions? instable?
In case not: As the short living VS 2003 compiler is now more rare than 
the good old VC6, wouldn't it be better to switch back to VC6 for Py2.5 
or at least to VC6 libs (which are maybe "free" of dev-license as they 
sit on each Windows).
Maybe a suitable policy: the default crtl for Python should better be 
the default library of the OS and not that of a random compiler which is 
currently hip?

* can't the Mingw/gcc be used together with Windows default crt/mfc libs 
for Python2.5 ? - Python getting away the from this MS studio (lib) 
harassment?
( Personally I'd give no cent for that little runtime speed advantage by 
the VS2005 compiler when comparing to a slimness + stable standard + 
freedom )
Together with a clear decision to clean the Python core libs from recent 
habits to "statically" preload OS-kind-of-packages (e.g. codecs, the 
licentious pre-imports in urllib and friends ),  I'd have hope to get 
out of my deadlock on Python2.3.

* how many (serious) python users require to build distributable 
installers (which have carry the python-rtls and non-default crtl's)?
I guess, almost all GUI apps have this requirement? And GUI apps 
probably count more (also in line numbers) than web apps today as more 
and more Delphi, BCPPB, Java, C++/MFC developers switch to Python?


-robert