Download Microsoft C/C++ compiler for use with Python 2.6/2.7 ASAP

[Martin v. Loewis]

>>  - many things which are runtime independent on unix are not on
>> windows (file descriptor: AFAIK, a file descriptor as returned from
>> open can be dealt with in any C runtime on unix)
> 
> Are you telling me that file descriptors (it's a flippin int!) can't be
> passed around universally on Windows??

There are really three things of concern here:
a) operating system file handles, of type HANDLE (which is an unsigned
   32-bit value); they are not contiguous, and stdin/stdout/stderr may
   have arbitrary numbers
b) C runtime file handles, of type int. They are contiguous, and
   stdin/stdout/stderr are 0/1/2.
c) C FILE*.

OS handles can be passed around freely within a process; across
processes, they lose their meaning

It's the data of types b) and c) that cause problems: the CRT handle 4
means different things depending on what copy of the CRT is interpreting it.

It's worse with FILE*: passing a FILE* of one CRT to the fread()
implementation of a different CRT will cause a segfault.

> And, as has already been said in this thread, this does not concern the
> .net developer, or any developer that sticks to managed code, be it
> .net, CPython, or something-else based.

Since when is CPython managed code?

Regards,
Martin