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Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32
From: |
Hugues Valois |
Subject: |
Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32 |
Date: |
Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:29:16 -0700 |
Hi Walter/all,
I'm not sure if by "switch to mingw" you are actually suggesting deprecating
support for Visual C++. It sounds like you are, and if that's the case, I
would have to strongly disagree. Of course I have no problems with "adding
support for mingw", or any other compiler/tool.
If I misunderstood you, then you can skip the following rant/opinion :)
As a Visual C++ user (for about 10 years), I certainly wouldn't be
interested in switching to a different product that makes ME less
productive. I know I would never have bothered compiling FreeSCI myself if
there was no VC++ project, much less implement a game selection screen.
Now the fact that Hugues Valois doesn't want to switch from VC++ to gcc
probably doesn't mean anything to the FreeSCI team. After all, I'm not
contributing anything right now (except this long and boring email). My
main interest at the moment is to be able to get the latest code from CVS,
build using VC++, and test games. I plan on doing that when a glutton
release is near.
My opinion is that dropping VC++ support will not help motivate and attract
typical windows C++ programmers (a majority of which use VC++ and like the
product) to help out the FreeSCI team. Adding gcc support may help in
attracting students that want to learn for free. Dropping VC++ support
would detract more experienced windows programmers that use VC++ at work.
That's my own prediction. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll gladly admit it.
I will be very happy if more people are working on the win32 port!
It's true that Visual Studio (the suite) can be expensive. But to compile
FreeSCI you only need Visual C++. You can purchase Visual C++ 2003 Standard
Edition for 89$US at amazon.com. It's not free, but I wouldn't qualify that
as "very expensive software".
What's the cost/disadvantages of keeping the Visual C++ support?
- Project files need to be updated separately from the makefiles
- Can't use gcc extensions*
- Can't use latest C standard*
* Compiling with VC++ and gcc ensures that the C code is more "generic" than
it would be if only gcc was used. This seems to me like a good thing, worth
the occasional annoyances. Not sure about this, but can gcc be used to
build for Windows Mobile platform? If not, Embedded VC++ or VC++ 2005 would
be required.
In summary, the points I am trying to make are that
- Support for Visual C++ builds isn't so costly that it should be abandoned
- Visual C++ is not that expensive and it's widely used
- Dropping support for Visual C++ in favor of mingw won't attract that much
more qualified developers to help with the win32 port
- Adding support for mingw could be worthwhile, but not at the expense of
VC++
That's my 2 cents,
hugues
I know I've said this before, but I think it would be better to switch to
mingw for the windows port. That way we could integrate it into the
automake/autoconf system. Another point is that Visual Studio is very
expensive software and this severely limits the number of people that might
be able to help out with the windows port.
Regards,
Walter van Niftrik
- [freesci-develop] cvs: jameson, (continued)
- [freesci-develop] cvs: jameson, FreeSCI CVS repository, 2005/10/22
- [freesci-develop] cvs: jameson, FreeSCI CVS repository, 2005/10/24
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, Walter van Niftrik, 2005/10/25
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, James Albert, 2005/10/25
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, James Albert, 2005/10/25
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32,
Hugues Valois <=
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, Walter van Niftrik, 2005/10/26
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, James Albert, 2005/10/26
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, Christoph Reichenbach, 2005/10/26
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, Alex Angas, 2005/10/26
- Re: [freesci-develop] State of Glutton on Win32, Alex Angas, 2005/10/29
[freesci-develop] cvs: jameson, FreeSCI CVS repository, 2005/10/25