[Python-Dev] Compiler used to build Python for Windows

[Bob Kline]

I know this is a topic which has been discussed before (more than 
once).  I'm just adding one more data point.  Python.org currently uses 
VS2003's compiler for building the distributed Windows binaries for 
Python.  Unfortunately, there's a nasty bug in the runtime libraries 
that support this compiler which causes Python to give the wrong answer 
when you ask what time it is in most US time zones for four weeks of the 
year (daylight saving time is observed in that country for four more 
weeks than those Microsoft's libraries think it is).  Even more 
unfortunate, the patch Microsoft offers is not for the redistributable 
libraries directly, but for Visual Studio.  Worse, Microsoft advises 
against applying the patch at all, implying that insufficient testing 
has taken place, urging instead that customers wait for a service pack 
for Visual Studio which corrects the bug.  We've been waiting more than 
a year, without any indication from MS that this service pack will ever 
materialize, and it doesn't apply to non-development machines anyway.  
Every indication seems to point to effective abandonment by Microsoft of 
those who still use this version of the compiler.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932299

We don't have conclusive evidence that later versions of Visual Studio 
are not affected by this bug, but the only KB article we have found for 
the bug is specific to C runtime library for the 2003 compiler.

Any possibility of revisiting this question (upgrading to a more recent 
compiler for Windows builds of Python)?

-- 
Bob Kline
http://www.rksystems.com
mailto:bkline at rksystems.com