[Python-Dev] MS VC 7 offer

[Phil Thompson]

On Tuesday 06 May 2003 7:26 pm, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> A month ago at Python UK in Oxford (which was colocated with C and C++
> standardization meetings as well as a general C and C++ users
> conference) I met with some folks from Microsoft's VC development
> team, including the project lead, Nick Hodapp.  I told Nick that
> Python for Windows was still built using VC 6.  He pointed out that
> the actual compilers (not the GUI) from VC 7 are freely downloadable.
>
> More recently, Nick sent me an email offering to donate copies of VC 7
> to the "key developers".  I count Tim, myself and Mark Hammond among
> the key developers.  Is there anyone else who would count themselves
> among those?
>
> I presume he's offering the pro version, which has a real optimizer,
> unlike the "standard" version that was kindly donated by Bjorn
> Pettersen.
>
> I can see advantages and disadvantages of moving to VC 7; I'm sure the
> VC 7 compiler is more standard-compliant and generates faster code,
> but a disadvantage is that you can't apparently link binaries built
> with VC 6 to a program built with VC 7, meaning that 3rd party
> extensions will have to be recompiled with VC 7 as well.  I have no
> idea how many projects this will affect (don't worry about Zope Corp
>
> :-).  Maybe we should try to include those 3rd party developers in the
>
> deal.  (I think Robin Dunn would be affected, wxPython has a Windows
> distribution.)
>
> If you think this is a bad idea or if you would like to qualify for a
> compiler donation, please follow up!

How do we get hold of the free VC 7 compilers?

Phil