Poll of the week: main OS and compiler

[Manu]

On 2 March 2012 11:09, Brad Roberts <braddr at puremagic.com> wrote:

> On 3/2/2012 12:25 AM, Manu wrote:
> > But we knew that already, because most of the D devs are linux guys, and
> D does not present a good experience to Windows
> > users. I can personally point to numerous friends/colleagues who tried
> out D and turned away within a few hours because
> > the Windows experience was so weak.
> > Windows support should be prioritized BECAUSE Windows numbers are low,
> not because there's perceived to be no demand on
> > that platform.
>
> I'm fairly your assertion is incorrect, if by "d devs" you mean the guys
> that are building dmd/druntime/phobos.  I think
> we actually have more contributors that are windows based than linux
> based.  At a minimum the numbers are well balanced,
> not wildly lopsided towards linux.
>
> No one has ever claimed that there's no demand for windows support.
>  What's been asserted is that it's easier to support
> linux/bsd/osx.  And indeed that was backed up by how much time was spent
> on the platform specific parts vs the generic
> parts while implementing 64 bit support.  Windows will get 64 bit support
> at some point.  That's not even a question.
> What is a question is when, and there isn't a good answer for that right
> now.
>
> There's a clear need to focus/prioritize limited resources.  It's not a
> hard choice to decide to defer spending many
> months working on win64 and other platform specific support issues when
> there's still language level issues that cross
> every platform.  That said, as always, if someone wants to scratch that
> itch and contribute to improving the windows
> specific parts, help will be welcomed with open arms and lots of
> encouragement.
>

I wonder what the loss in potential contributors adds up to from those that
turn away on account of incomplete windows support?
Is it possible that loss of potential manpower is significant enough to
justify the time spent?

Also, does it represent a loss to D in terms of marketing? Some genuinely
interested parties who turn away because they couldn't begin working with
the language effectively may then relay that negative experience to other
potential developers (I've witnessed this, and had to argue myself that D
is not actually shit, it's just an unfinished implementation).

Personally, I just want to be able to link like a normal windows developer.
My code is C/C++, built with VC, and I want to link my D app against those
libs using the VC linker, and debug with Visual Studio. This is the
workflow I think the vast majority of Windows devs will expect, and it
sounds simple enough. This is the only thing standing between me using D
for any major projects, and just experimenting with the language for
evaluation, or just academic interest.
64bit is far less important to me personally, VisualC linker compatibility
is the big one. I just want to link against my C code without jumping
through lots of hoops.
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