[sorry, I was disabled due to bounces, I'm just reading up now]. GvR:

For Windows, since the only supported compiler is VC++, it could be hardcoded. However, there's a very serious problem on Windows with Interscript's approach of invoking the compiler at run-time: most users don't have this compiler. I realize that gcc is available for free, but I think it isn't compatible with VC++. As far as I know, VC++ is required if you want to use any of Mark Hammond's stuff (COM and MFC). I don't know if Tcl/Tk can be used (without recompilation) from a gcc-based app, and I don't know how easy it would be to recompile. (Does gcc on Windows have support for Win32 APIs at all?)

FYI: The status of gcc on Windows as far as I understand it: -- it's called the Cygwin project -- it's supported by Cygnus (see www.cygnus.com) -- it uses egcs, not gcc -- current build is b20 (note: doesn't comply with version number scheme discussed earlier =) -- it provides access to the win32 api if you want -- it needs access to cygwin.dll on the machine (not a standard MS library =) -- in the past, it was very hard or impossible to have gcc-compiled and VC-compiled objects linked together, even statically. -- I believe things are better now, but far from trivial (I'm still at b19 because of final comment below) -- I could imagine doing things like compiling Python + NumPy together, but I'd never try Python+PIL+NumPy+Tk+readline+threads+... Final comment on Cygwin: While Cygwin is free, it is *hard* to install and setup in a proper way. My advice to all Windows users who want to compile things is to buy VC -- the Cygwin stuff is just not there yet when it comes to novices or folks who are short on time. Final comment on GvR's point above: I don't think VC is needed to use MHammond's COM stuff. Just the DLLs, which are installed on reasonable machines. --david "my Mom still can't forgive me for using Windows" ascher