From: Guido van Rossum [mailto:guido@python.org]
If this means that those of us with VC6, and with no plans/reasons to upgrade can no longer build our own extensions, this would be a disaster.
Part of the offer was:
| Potentially we can even figure out how to enable anyone to | build Python using the freely downloadable compilers I mentioned | above...
Which is good news (don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see Microsoft supporting open source projects in this way). But wouldn't that imply unoptimised builds? I just checked:
cl /O2 Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Standard Compiler Version 13.00.9466 for 80x86 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1984-2001. All rights reserved.
cl : Command line warning D4029 : optimization is not available in the standard edition compiler So, specifically, if PythonLabs releases Python 2.3 built with MSVC7, and I want to build the latest version of PIL, (maybe because Fredrik hasn't released a binary version yet), do I have no way of getting an optimised build (I pick PIL deliberately, because I guess that image processing would benefit from optimisation, and in the past, PIL binaries have been relatively hard to obtain at times)? That's the problem I see, personally. I have VC6 because my employer uses Visual Studio for Visual Basic development. But VB has changed so much in the transition to .NET, that I don't believe they will ever going to VS7. So I will have to remain with VS6 (I'm never going to buy VS7 myself, just for this sort of job). Paul.
That's the problem I see, personally. I have VC6 because my employer uses Visual Studio for Visual Basic development. But VB has changed so much in the transition to .NET, that I don't believe they will ever going to VS7. So I will have to remain with VS6 (I'm never going to buy VS7 myself, just for this sort of job).
I must say that anecdotally, I find this to be true. Developers are *not* flocking to VC7. I wonder if that fact has anything to do with MS offering free compilers? Maybe we could get 100 free versions out of them <wink> Mark.
"Mark Hammond" <mhammond@skippinet.com.au> writes:
I must say that anecdotally, I find this to be true. Developers are *not* flocking to VC7. I wonder if that fact has anything to do with MS offering free compilers?
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). Whatever you may think of Microsoft's offer, I feel that this reduction in choice is a bad thing. Paul. -- This signature intentionally left blank
participants (3)
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Mark Hammond -
Moore, Paul -
Paul Moore