Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:

Paul Moore wrote:

...

One further data point - the free mingw gcc compiler generates binaries which depend on msvcrt.dll. So, if the Pythonlabs distribution switches to MSVC7, developers using MSVC6 *and* developers using mingw will be unable to build compatible extensions. The only compatible compiler will be MSVC7 (either the paid for version or the free limited version).

Are there any reasons why we can't just switch to MINGW instead?

Yes. Several: 1) Python can't be built with MINGW, yet. I'm working on it, and so are other people, apparently (search python-list). 2) The Microsoft IDE is a more productive development environment for those that develop Python on Windows. I'm not sure, but my uneducated guess is that there are only a few Python developers who do any significant work on the win32 side, I only know about Guido, Tim, Mark. Those that actually put Python forward on win32 should decide about their development environment, IMO. My guess is that MINGW will eventually be a supported platform, but not the primary method of building Python. FWIW, Mozilla recently (1.4 beta 1) got compilable with mingw on win32. They're calling mingw a "tier 3" platform, while MSVC is a "tier 1" platform. I haven't looked up the terms, but I guess that "tier 3" means "nice to have" for a realease, while "tier 1" means "must have". I reckon the situation will be a similar one for Python once it'll gain mingw support.

If the VC7 RT is the way of the future, then presumably MINGW will eventually support it. [...]

"Eventually" being the keyword here. -- Gerhard