[MATRIX-SIG] compiling NumPy for Windows

[Konrad Hinsen]

> Here's the issue -- with the latest Microsoft Visual compiler suite, the
> GUI is the predominant way to manipulate the build process.  While it can
> (somewhat) read old makefiles, and it can export makefiles, I think there
> will be less and less support for that over the years -- for example, I

I'd call that a serious problem for scientific applications, where
distribution of source code is nothing unusual. Even if you adopt the
Microsoft point of view that non-Windows systems don't matter, you
still need executables for different chips (currently Intel and
Alpha), and you can't expect every program author to have all systems
available for producing binaries.

> Well, there is no equivalent to Makefile.pre.in on PC's.  There's the
> registry, which tells you about things like version number & where the
> binaries & Lib directory are, but there is no way to find out
> automatically where the source tree is.

You don't need the source tree for compiling extensions. If you can
locate the libraries and header files, that's sufficient.

> Such an extension compilation tool would be easier to write if one could
> assume that Mark Hammond's Registry and COM tools were installed, as
> they'd make talking to the registry and compiler much easier.  

That doesn't sound like an unrealistic assumption.

> I haven't heard anyone on this list mention anything but Microsoft's
> compiler.

But there's a port of gcc plus some Unix tools to Windows, right?
Would it make sense to recommend this to Windows users? It should
make porting Unix stuff much easier.

Konrad.
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Konrad Hinsen                          | E-Mail: hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr
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