[Python-Dev] Supporting Visual Studio 2010

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Am 05.04.2011 00:21, schrieb Antoine Pitrou:
> On Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:40:33 +0200
> "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>> - users have expressed concerns that they constantly need to upgrade
>>   VS releases when developing for Python.
> 
> Isn't that kind of a misguided argument? It's not Python who decides the
> lifecycle of MSVC releases, it's Microsoft. We can't be blamed for the
> churn.

But we *can* be blamed for closely following the MS release cycle (if
we actually did that). For Python 3.2, we resisted.

> If getting old (Microsoft-unsupported) MSVC releases is difficult, then
> I think switching to the newest MSVC as soon as possible is the best
> strategy, since it minimizes the annoyance for people wanting to build
> extensions several years after a release is made.

OTOH, the very same people will have to buy licenses for all MSVC
releases. If we manage to skip some of them, the zoo of products you
need to install to support Python gets smaller.

Of course, if you use the stable ABI, going forward, you can decouple
from Python's product management.

Regards,
Martin