[Python-Dev] Status of C compilers for Python on Windows

[Brian Curtin]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 7:29 PM, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Windows is not the primary target of Python developers, probably
> because most of them work on Linux. Official Python binaries are
> currently built by Microsoft Visual Studio. Even if Python developers
> get free licenses thanks for Microsoft, I would prefer to use an open
> source compiler if it would be possible. So *anyone* can build Python
> from scatch. I don't like the requirement of having a license to build
> Python. The free version (Visual Studio Express) only supports 32-bit
> and doesn't support PGO build (Profile-Guided Optimizations, which are
> disabled if I remember correctly because of compiler bugs).
>
> I know that it's hard to replace Visual Studio. I don't want to do it
> right now, but I would like to discuss that with you.

Although I'm not very active around here much anymore, I was primarily
working on Windows things within the last few years.

While we have a lot of Windows users, we don't have a lot of Windows
contributors. The huge amount of churn necessary to make a change away
from VS, or the more likely move to make it possible to support both
VS and <insert other compiler>, seems like a large amount of work that
doesn't turn up much of a benefit. Especially for a platform with
constrained developer availability, working software trumps all, so I
don't expect that a project like this is going to see the regular
contributors shifting their focus away from improving Python as it is.

With that said, I do see the benefit of being able to build Python
with a free compiler. It would be great for us to be able to say it's
always built with free tools, but I'm not sure who's going to make
this happen...