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

Cesare Di Mauro cesare.di.mauro at gmail.com
Fri Aug 13 09:13:13 CEST 2010

2010/8/13 Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz>

Cesare Di Mauro wrote:

You must suggest at least an equivalent "free" alternative to make the switch convenient.

Otherwise we are talking about philosophy or religion, and nobody will change his ideas.

I think the point is that because people don't want to change their ideas, it would be good to have a mingw-based alternative. Otherwise everyone is forced to convert to the Windows religion. -- Greg

I like to use Windows because it's a comfortable and productive environment, certainly not because someone forced me to use it.

Also, I have limited time, so I want to spend it the better I can, focusing on solving real problems. Setup, Next, Next, Finish, and I want it working without thinking about anything else.

It's a philosophy similar to Python: you don't need to know if the platform where it's running is 32 or 64 bits, little or big endian, the operating system, and so on. Just launch it and start typing code: it'll work.

It can be also a matter of taste. I like graphical environments since the old Amiga days. If I need a shell, I greatly prefer Python.

Anyway, for Windows there's cygwin too, and Python works. But after some months I replaced it with native Windows tools (with VisualStudio on top): I work much, much better this way.

If someone is interested in a mingw port, he should consider about having decent alternatives to what a Windows user can found on his platform, otherwise it'll be just pure exercise or a faith matter, since nobody will use it concretely on a daily work.

Give users a better choice, and I don't see logical reasons because they'll not change their mind.

My 2 cents.

Cesare -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20100813/59b1d28c/attachment.html>

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list