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

[Daniel Gibson]

Am 21.05.2011 01:11, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
> "Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:ir6r32$1he8$11 at digitalmars.com...
>> Am 21.05.2011 00:34, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
>>> "Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes at gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:ir6q2j$1he8$8 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> Am 21.05.2011 00:20, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
>>>>> "Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes at gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:ir6p9s$1he8$6 at digitalmars.com...
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It's bad if the program is open source and it's required to build the
>>>>> program.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why? MSYS and mingw are available on Windows and mingw is even available
>>>> on linux for cross-compiling so it makes sense to use it for building
>>>> the Windows version.
>>>> As long as the resulting program doesn't have these dependencies it's ok
>>>> IMHO.
>>>> And if you really care it shouldn't be too hard to make it use another
>>>> build-system (so you don't need MSYS) and maybe even another compiler..
>>>
>>> The way I see it, msys and mingw are total pains in the ass that should
>>> never be forced on anyone regardless of whether they're just using a 
>>> program
>>> or compiling it (and cygwin's even worse). If someone wants to use it
>>> themself, then fine, but that garbage should never be forced on anyone.
>>>
>>> And again, using Wine doesn't count as supporting Linux, so why the hell
>>> should the other way around be any different?
>>>
>>
>> Come on, that comparison is BS.
>> You can /maybe/ compare cygwin to libwine (but not wine itself)..
>> But MinGW is just a compiler and some other tools that are native and
>> produce native code that doesn't need wrappers for posix-interfaces or
>> such. And MSYS is just a shell environment with some Unix tools like
>> bash, make, grep, ... and not some kind of Linux emulator.
> 
> In other words, Wine does even *more* to make windows programs work on 
> linux...
> 

Of course, because more is needed, because they're less portable.
Wine provides the Win API and a lot of libs (like directx) and runs
windows binaries.
MSYS/cygwin don't run Linux binaries. Cygwin provides a POSIX API. So
it's kind of comparable to libwine.
However MinGW uses the Windows API => is native. It's just a different
compiler (and related tools) than e.g. MSVC or DMC and its tools.

BTW: I don't consider programs that need cygwin on Windows proper
Windows ports.
But I don't mind MinGW (and MSYS, to some degree).