[Python-Dev] Open PEPs and large-scale changes for 3.3

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> * PEP 397: Python launcher for Windows

I hope to submit a rewrite of this PEP RSN.

> Also, if I missed any obvious candidate PEP or change, please let me know.

A big pending change is the switch to a new Visual Studio release. The 
challenge here is that we need to stop using the outdated VS 2008, but
then, VS 2010 will soon be outdated as well, so it would be sad (IMO)
if we switch from one outdated tool to the next.

Therefore, I would really like to see Python 3.3 use VS 2012, except
that this won't be released for a few more months (the release is likely
along with the release for Windows 8, which likely happens "this
summer").

So what specific VS release we use may depend on whether there will be
another alpha release or not (but it may also be that another alpha 
release still won't buy enough time, so that we use VS 2008 for 2.7,
VS 2010 for 3.3, and VS 2012 for 3.4).

Regards,
Martin

P.S. There is (as of yet unconfirmed) rumor that VS 2012 won't support
XP, which would clearly rule it out for Python 3.3, and likely also for
3.4. It also appears that VS 2012 might include the VS 2010 tool chain,
which means that this tool chain won't be that outdated.

P.P.S. this affects primarily the build files and the packaging,
but then also affects distutils etc., and the buildbots - for the
latter, switching the VS version likely means that all Windows buildbots
will break, likely requiring several months for them to come back.

P.P.P.S. People, please don't propose to drop VS in favor of gcc. That
won't happen.