[OT] Re: There's new GIT instructions on Github now

Daniel Gibson metalcaedes at gmail.com
Fri May 20 15:13:30 PDT 2011


Am 20.05.2011 23:55, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
> "Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:ir6l0q$1he8$2 at digitalmars.com...
>> Am 20.05.2011 22:41, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
>>> "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message
>>> news:ir67mk$2jfi$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> On 5/20/11 2:33 AM, Don wrote:
>>>>> You've really got to be a fanboy to claim that git is supported on
>>>>> Windows. Sure, it "works" -- in the same way that hammering a nail with
>>>>> a rock "works".
>>>>
>>>> Fanboyism for Windows or git? :o)
>>>>
>>>> I'm not surprised in the least. I was just remarking to Walter the other
>>>> day that Unix has become the path of least resistance for doing
>>>> programming-at-large and in particular OSS kind of work, just the same 
>>>> as
>>>> Windows is for office computing and OSX and portable derivatives for
>>>> computer-based entertainment.
>>>>
>>>> The confusing part is that roughly all OSs offer (at least nominally)
>>>> means for achieving most any given typical task, so comparing in terms 
>>>> of
>>>> "has/doesn't have" is not relevant. It's the many little differences and
>>>> nuances that add up to a long tail. So it's not surprising that
>>>> git/Windows has many issues, just the same it's not surprising that 
>>>> people
>>>> are having trouble playing media or using OpenOffice on Unixen.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I realize you're not actually accusing him of Windows fanboyism, but that
>>> trouble with media, etc on Unix brings up an interesting issue: Unix 
>>> users
>>> have a real, legitimate complaint regarding those problems. And when they
>>> voice those complaints nobody would ever even consider dismissing that as
>>> Unix fanboyism. And when those Unix users accuse various companies of
>>> playing Windows favoritism: Well, they're absolutely right. It *is*
>>> inexcusable Windows favoritism.
>>>
>>> But OTOH, when a Unix program has a shoddy "port" to Windows, and Windows
>>> users complain, all of a sudden there are people (not necessarily you) 
>>> that
>>> push back with what basically amounts to "What the hell are you whining
>>> about? Either shut up and use it or switch to Linux."
>>>
>>
>> It's the same when it's the other way round. "You can't properly view
>> that docx file? Just use Windows and MS Office like everybody else"
> 
> Yea, but 99.9% those are just moron office drones who barely even know how 
> to use a mouse (Not that I mean to excuse it. It *does* piss me off when 
> some dipshit service rep insists I should use Adobe's PDF viewer or MS's 
> word processor "It works for all our other [idiot] customers, so quit being 
> difficult!" Stupid fucking bitch...). Most Linux users, OTOH, are power 
> users and should know better.
> 
>> "Stop complaining that there are no games for Linux, just boot Windows
>> and be thankful that there's a PC port at all (and not just
>> xbox360/PS3)" "If you want to use Photoshop just get a Mac or Windows" etc
>>
> 
> Yea, and that's exactly the sort of thing I meant about corporations playing 
> inexcusable Windows favoritism. But what I was talking about is just 
> ordinary (knowledgeable) users and OSS contributors who actually know what 
> they're doing. From what I've seen, there are a lot on Linux that consider 
> shoddy msys/mingw/cygwin "ports" to be acceptable, but not so many Linux 
> users who consider shoddy Windows->Linux ports acceptable.
>

Isn't mingw just a port of GCC, GDB etc? I don't think using it to build
software (even together with MSYS when it's just used for configure etc
and is not needed to run the program itself) is bad.

> (Although I'd modify that "xbox360/ps3" to just "xbox360". After all, one of 
> the most important game engine developers out there, Epic, clearly cares 
> about as much about the PS3 as they do Linux. Anything that isn't an MS 
> platform, Epic just refuses to give a rat's ass about. Not that I'm a PS3 
> fan, I think all the current game platforms are crap, but that's a whole 
> other rant.)
> 
>>> It really reminds me of the old crusades: The Linux side feels it has the
>>> moral high ground (and frankly, I can't totally disagree), but then ends 
>>> up
>>> using that to excuse going around employing whatever 
>>> normally-questionable
>>> tactics they damn well feel like using.
>>>
>>
>> The difference is: The Unix/Linux programs are mostly open source, so
>> anybody can create a Windows port or improve an existing port.
>> Windows only programs (that are missed on Linux) tend to be closed
>> source so you'd have to completely reimplement them for Linux support
>> (and even then you'd probably have troubles with proprietary file
>> formats and network protocols).
>>
>> So if there are really big problems with git on Windows anybody can (try
>> to) fix them or even reimplement git for Windows (or platform
>> independent with a higher focus on Windows) - the source is available
>> (and with it documentation for file formats and network protocols).
>>
>> I do of course understand that you (or Don) personally don't have time
>> for that and would prefer if it'd just work.
> 
> Well, I'm primarily a Windows user, but when I write an OSS app, I actually 
> *design* it specifically to be cross-platform (ex: I don't design the whole 
> damn thing around hundreds of Windows-specific assumptions), *and* then I 
> actually test on Linux (And I plan to add FreeBSD now that VirtualBox makes 
> installing/using another OS safe and easy. I'd happily do OSX, too, but 
> that's locked into expensive proprietary hardware. But that's not so even 
> with Windows). Maybe I'm just blind but to me that seems to be typical of 
> Windows OSS developers: We don't just design with *only* our OS in mind and 
> then pawn off the inevitably large porting job to someone else who may or 
> may not come along. At least I sure as hell don't. But the other way around 
> doesn't seem to happen much.
> 
> 

There are also Windows only OSS projects. Especially when it comes to
programs with a GUI (and most programs Windows have a GUI) people tend
to ignore portability because they're used to Windows specific toolkits.
It's great that you care so much for portability, but unfortunately many
other developers (developing for Linux, Windows or especially OSX) don't.
And sometimes there are just technical reasons, like Windows not
supporting fork()

I think in the case of git it's just a bit of bad luck.. as I wrote in
another branch of this thread, Linus probably didn't care at all about
Windows when developing git (it was meant to be used for Linux kernel
development) and because it relies heavily on bash it's hard to port to
Windows without msys or cygwin (which provide bash).


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