[Numpy-discussion] Moving to gcc 4.* for win32 installers ?

[David Cournapeau]

Hi,

I was wondering if we could finally move to a more recent version of
compilers for official win32 installers. This would of course concern
the next release cycle, not the ones where beta/rc are already in
progress.

Basically, the pros:
  - we will have to move at some point
  - gcc 4.* seem less buggy, especially C++ and fortran.
  - no need to maintain msvcr90 vodoo
The cons:
  - it will most likely break the ABI
  - we need to recompile atlas (but I can take care of it)
  - the biggest: it is difficult to combine gfortran with visual
studio (more exactly you cannot link gfortran runtime to a visual
studio executable). The only solution I could think of would be to
recompile the gfortran runtime with Visual Studio, which for some
reason does not sound very appealing :)

Thoughts ?

cheers,

David