Hi,
On 7/31/10, Frank Heckenbach ih8mj@fjf.gnu.de wrote:
For what I know, of the 5 main developers GPC has had, the percentage of Windows users (as their main OS) is exactly 0%. So if your statistic was relevant, there should be dozens of Windows programmers just waiting to take over as main developers and GPC's future was secured for decades. Or maybe a lot of those 90% are just computer "consumers" who wouldn't notice if the OS, hardware and applications on their computer were exchanged completely, as long as their icons look the same -- and you wonder why they're not here to discuss the future of a Pascal compiler?
That's correct, they are just consumers. And anyways 90% of all statistics are made up! ;-) My brother's new laptop is Win64. No problem at all for him (migrating from 32-bit Vista) because his favorite stuff still works: mIRC, iTunes, etc. For me (who shuns all that stuff), it'd be more painful (although admittedly mostly due to bugs and no NTVDM, *sniff*).
I'd add that it's not only (or even mainly) the GNU project, but standards such as POSIX that foster portability. Linux supports POSIX (plus extensions), Windows also (grudgingly) supports POSIX (minus some flaws), so a port from Linux to Windows is not always trivial, but possible with some effort.
Windows doesn't support POSIX at all unless you meant Cygwin. They've long ago dropped the (wimpy) POSIX subsystem. The only reason (AFAICT) to use MinGW is if you don't need POSIX and just want "fast and simple" binaries or if you dislike the Cygwin .DLL license issue. Obviously it's very hard to port anything from Linux to Windows, so there are many projects that have either none or alpha / very incomplete Windows support (e.g. Bash, Go, Git, TCC, QEMU). Targeting POSIX too heavily can indeed hurt on the Windows side. (And I'm not saying Windows is better, it's worse!)
OTOH, native Windows programs use a completely different API, and a port from Windows to Linux is a much larger task, basically rewriting anything related to the OS (not only GUIs, also file I/O uses a completely different API). Most Windows programmers don't care about this, or at best only as an afterthought.
True, sadly. It's something you have to think about ahead of time (or else really know what you're doing, have lots of experience porting, etc).
Like it or not, Delphi is the best Pascal system going out there, pricey indeed; well worth it in my opinion.
Fortunately, opinions can differ. In my opinion, software that is non-free and non-portable is never "the best".
Best Pascal? GPC! :-) Best Win32 (and now or soon Win64?) heavily-tweaked, Pascal-ish GUI-based? Maybe Delphi.
For the sake of clarity in this discussion, could someone please make a glossary of the many acronyms therein. I do not recognize half of them.
I've yet to see a Windows user (who is not also a Linux user) supporting Linux-only features. And then I have to read (see above) how Windows is underrepresented and not talked about enough.
Well, if you're not also a Linux user, how could you even know how to support Linux?? Windows is definitely not completely underrepresented, but GNU does indeed target POSIX (or Linux) almost exclusively, and some GNU projects do indeed reject patches that don't fit that "ideal". So, it's true that Windows is supported, but they are not top tier (except maybe as a fluke sometimes by popularity).
So for those who think free software means they just get it without paying (free beer, not free speech) and yet get to tell us what we should do and complain when we do what we consider important, not what they consider important (instead of doing it themselves), that won't work.
Feedback is important. But sure, the one who codes decides. And programming isn't that easy.
Sure, one of the points of free software is that anyone can use it for any purpose, but there's also a rule: Those who code make the decisions.
:-))
And by this measure, if I look through the mailing list archives, Dos and Windows have actually been vastly overrepresented.
DOS overrepresented??? Nooooooo! Trust me, DOS is heavily shunned. It's not popular at all. I get a lot of flack for my support of it. And that's even with a GPL kernel + "BASE" (FreeDOS) + DJGPP w/ modern GCC. In some ways I consider it more portable (across OSes) and easy to use / install DOS software than Win32 or Linux. Or even easier to build / modify stuff. And yes, I know it's a losing battle ....
Win32 bores me with all its GUI and stupid technology (DirectX, .NET) although I am admittedly mostly a Windows "user". Only very very barely into Linux, but I don't think I'll ever be 100% "pro POSIX, GNU" etc. as long as their build processes and tools are so arcane and complex. In other words, I might use Linux more and more, but "in spirit" I will always be on the lookout to NOT be too *nix-oriented. It's not that I love Windows so much, just that *nix can be ugly at times. Besides, you can indeed ignore Windows (non-POSIX) if you want, but why would you want to?
I don't know, it's a mess. Even if everybody gets along (rare), everything's so complex or nobody has time. Portability is hard.