[Python-Dev] Re: No-cost optimizing VC 7.1 (original) (raw)

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 20 08:29:37 EDT 2004

On Monday 19 April 2004 10:03 pm, Martin v. Löwis wrote:

Moore, Paul wrote: > I don't know if anyone has stats on how many of the 3rd party > extension authors who currently provide Windows binaries have > access to MSVC7, and so can make the switch. It may be "all of > them". I don't have MSVC7, although I do have MSVC6 (my company, > or at least my group, never upgraded) but I've no idea how unusual > my situation is. A heads-up on c.l.p would probably be worth it, > but it's also likely to generate a huge amount of FUD, and anti- > Microsoft rants.

Given that the Python release is still several months ahead, I'd advise against such a posting. Personally, I don't know a single VC6 user who doesn't also have a copy of VC.NET 2003 available (except for you, whom I only know via email :-)

Add me to the set of VC6 users who don't have VC.NET 2003 (basically because the Windows I run is still Win98 -- as I can run it under Linux with cheap win4lin -- and VC.NET doesn't support that old Win version). Still, I suspect my particular reason is rare -- and from this thread, if I understand it correctly, I gather that if you do run Win/XP, as most do these days of course, it doesn't cost extra money to get a compiler able to build Python extensions.

In any case, the only possible change out of this discussion is that Python 2.4 would be built with VC6. I personally know a few people which have VC.NET 2003, but not VC6, because you cannot purchase the latter one, anymore. So, standardizing on .NET 2003 is a good thing: it means that .NET (2002) gets

Yes, if VC6 cannot be purchased then it would be too backwards-looking for Python 2.4 to require it from extension-authors. Presumably, for a Python release coming out in 2004, the fact that you cannot build extensions if the only Windows version you run is win98 is acceptable (sigh).

Alex

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