Moving Language Cuisinart project to Windows?

[Robert Kern]

In article <x7d6lylduv.fsf at guru.mired.org>,
	Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> writes:
> I've written a Python wrapper for some Legacy FORTRAN so it can have a
> modern GUI buith with Pmw/Tkinter. This works by the FORTRAN invoking
> C functions that invoke Python. This all works like a charm using the
> gcc tools on Unix and Python 2.2.
> 
> Now the client wants it on Windows. My question is - what's the right
> toolset for this? Is building Python 2.2 and Tk/Tcl on with the cygnus
> toolset possible? Or would I be better off getting compilers for
> Windows, and which ones?

If it works using gcc/g77 on Unix-type OS's, it will probably work with MinGW.
If you're using Distutils, the Python end is a snap [1]. Setting up MinGW may be
more complicated than setting up Cygwin, but I haven't played with either
recently [2]. The benefit of MinGW over Cygwin is that you will link against the
native libraries instead of going through the Cygwin compatibility layer. For
numerical code, this won't be much (if any) of a difference, but there can be
(at least when I did this several years ago) problems using Cygwin extensions
with a MSVC-compiled Python. Further, the MinGW-compiled extensions will run
without depending on the Cygwin DLL, so distribution is easier.

[1] http://www.python.org/doc/current/inst/non-ms-compilers.html
[2] http://www.mingw.org

>         Thanks,
>         <mike

-- 
Robert Kern
kern at caltech.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
 Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
  -- Richard Harter