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

[Nathaniel Smith]

On 11 Oct 2014 14:42, "Antoine Pitrou" <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 00:30:51 +0000 (UTC)
> Sturla Molden <sturla.molden at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:
> >
> > > CPython doesn't require OpenBLAS.  Not that I am not receptive to the
> > > needs of the numeric community... but, on the other hand, who in the
> > > hell releases a library with Windows support that doesn't work with
MSVC?!
> >
> > It uses AT&T assembly syntax instead of Intel assembly syntax.
>
> But you can compile OpenBLAS with one compiler and then link it to
> Python using another compiler, right? There is a single C ABI.

In theory, yes, but this is pretty misleading. The theory has been known
for years. In practice we've only managed to pull this off for the first
time within the last few months, and it requires one specific build of one
specific mingw fork with one specific set of build options, and only one
person understands the details. Hopefully all those things will continue to
be available and there aren't any showstopper bugs we haven't noticed yet...

(Before that we've spent the last 5+ years using a carefully preserved
build of an ancient 32 bit mingw and substandard BLAS .dll that were handed
down from our ancestors; we've had no capability to produce 64 bit official
builds at all. And a large proportion of users have been using 3rd party
proprietary builds.)

-n
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