MinGW and Python

[Robert Kern]

Brian Elmegaard wrote:
> Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> writes:
> 
>>the gcc project is to provide a portable compiler, not one that
>>generates the best code for any given platform. And in that goal, it
>>succeeds remarkably well.
> 
> Will a python program be slower on the same machine running windows
> compared to linux?

Dunno. Depends on the machine. Depends on the program. Depends on how the
interpreter and any extension modules and underlying libraries were built.
Depends on which Linux and which Windows.

I'm sorry, but your question is a non sequitur. I don't understand its relevance
to this thread.

> What I don't understand is that it is not possible to distribute a
> python compiled with gcc for windows. The main reason I saw in this
> thread is that python uses mfc. So python requires api access, I
> guess. 

It is possible. People have done it.

  http://jove.prohosting.com/iwave/ipython/pyMinGW.html

> Once I asked about distutils here.

Okay. Again, what's the relevance here?

> The answer was that I had access to
> the source so I could just extend it. After messing around I found I
> couldn't because I don't have msvc.

I'm not sure why this matters since distutils is pure Python.

If you meant writing extension modules for Python instead of extending
distutils, then you're in luck! You can indeed build extension modules with
mingw for the standard Python distribution. Please see my post in the thread "MS
VC++ Toolkit 2003, where?".

-- 
Robert Kern
robert.kern at gmail.com

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco