[Python-Dev] mingw support? (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Sun Aug 8 03:27:23 CEST 2010

Nick Coghlan wrote:

This used to be more of an issue because MS didn't provide a decent free compiler for their platform. These days (since the release of Visual Studio Express), we expect that people willing to use (or support) a closed OS can cope with also using the free-as-in-beer closed compiler provided by the vendor of that OS.

The problem with the MS "free" compilers is that it's only a temporary freedom. They have a habit of withdrawing older versions when newer ones become available. Together with their other obnoxious habit of changing the C runtime in incompatible ways with every release, the result is that extensions for versions of Python older than N years can no longer be compiled with any legally-available free MS compiler.

If you're talking about pragmatism, I think this situation causes very pragmatic difficulties.

-- Greg

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