[Python-Dev] Moving Python 3.5 on Windows to a new compiler

[Sturla Molden]

Eli Bendersky <eliben at gmail.com> wrote:

> While we're at it, Clang in nearing a stage where it can compile C and C++
> on Windows *with ABI-compatibility to MSVC* (yes, even C++) -- see
> <a
> href="http://clang.llvm.org/docs/MSVCCompatibility.html">http://clang.llvm.org/docs/MSVCCompatibility.html</a>
> for more details. Could
> this help?

Possibly. "cl-clang" is exciting and I hope distutils will support it one
day. Clang is not well known among Windows users as it is among users of
"Unix" (Apple, Linux, FreeBSD, et al.) It would be even better if Python
were bundled with Clang on Windows. 

The MinGW-based "SciPy toolchain" has ABI compatibility with MSVC only for
C (and Fortran), not C++. Differences from vanilla MinGW is mainly static
linkage of the MinGW runtime, different stack alignment (4 bytes instead of
16), and it links with msvcr91.dll instead of msvcrt.dll. 

Sturla