[Python-Dev] Linking with mscvrt

Thu Feb 9 23:00:10 CET 2006

Martin v. Löwis:
> COM really solves all problems people might have on Windows.

 COM was partly just a continuation of the practices used for
controls, VBXs and other forms of extension. Visual Basic never forced
use of a particular compiler or runtime library for extensions so why
should Python? It was also easy to debug an extension DLL inside
release-mode VB (I can't recall if debug versions of VB were ever
readily available) which is something that is more difficult than it
should be for Python.
> Alas, it is not a cross-platform API. Standard C is cross-platform,
> so Python uses it in its own APIs.

 The old (pre-XPCOM) Netscape plugin interface was cross-platform
and worked with any compiler on Windows.
 Neil