http://bugs.python.org/issue12837 deals with the single compiler warning left on OS X: a tautalogical compare in socketmodule.c that is valid under POSIX. I have a solution that uses pragmas to turn off tautological compare warnings for the single 'if' statement that triggers it. But there are very few places in Python's code base which use pragmas and I have never seen a discussion if we are okay with their overall use.

So is there any reason to not use pragmas sparsely in the code?

Tying into this and using compiler-specific things in C code, what about __attribute__? http://bugs.python.org/issue19298 proposes an idea that Daniel Stutzbach originally came up with where we could use __atribute__ (behind a nicer macro) to help detect refleaks on PyObject* stack variables. Would __attribute__ usage be okay in that situation?