On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 11:11:13PM +0000, forkit via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]
> In looking at the whole process of building on Windows, it does feel like it's carrying a big ball and chain .. and anyone who gets involved in it, needs to carry that as well ;-(
> 
> At some point of course, the continual effort exerted in dragging it, will eventually catch up with you, and stop you from moving forward.

It's interesting that Walter primarily works on Windows, yet the toolchain build process is more streamlined on *nix platforms. :-D


T

-- 
Без труда не выловишь и рыбку из пруда.

On Friday, 4 February 2022 at 23:22:42 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 11:11:13PM +0000, forkit via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]
>> In looking at the whole process of building on Windows, it does feel like it's carrying a big ball and chain .. and anyone who gets involved in it, needs to carry that as well ;-(
>> 
>> At some point of course, the continual effort exerted in dragging it, will eventually catch up with you, and stop you from moving forward.
>
> It's interesting that Walter primarily works on Windows, yet the toolchain build process is more streamlined on *nix platforms. :-D
>
>
> T

I think that's because Walter mostly uses internal tools only he knows how to use and his process of working isn't "mainstream" nor does he rely on the toolchain.

While the majority of users of D aren't Windows users, so that's why non-Windows has better support.

Personally I'm mostly a Windows user myself and even after using D for a decade I still find myself shooting myself in the foot once in a while trying to just build a simple project.

I think the biggest problem on Windows is linking. It never really works out of the box.

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 00:21:17 UTC, bauss wrote:

>
> Personally I'm mostly a Windows user myself and even after using D for a decade I still find myself shooting myself in the foot once in a while trying to just build a simple project.
>
> I think the biggest problem on Windows is linking. It never really works out of the box.

The only Windows-specific linker errors I've encountered in all my years of using D have been related to linking with C libraries that were compiled differently than my executable, i.e., they were built with MinGW, or they used MSVC settings that caused them to link with a different version of the C runtime. That happens in the C world, too.

Linking on Linux has pitfalls also. The problem I've encountered the most is that the order that libraries are passed to the linker matters. I've also had issues with mistmatched libc versions.

On Thursday, 3 February 2022 at 01:42:54 UTC, forkit wrote:
> In trying to get my head around the build process on Windows, I find myself asking 'what is the rationale for continuing to maintain 32bit on Windows'.

Deprecating platform is very painful sometimes.

A long time ago, when D suddently drops support Win2000, my business just dropping D.

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 05:27:58 UTC, Siemargl wrote:
>
> Deprecating platform is very painful sometimes.
>
> A long time ago, when D suddently drops support Win2000, my business just dropping D.

Well I tried to install Visual Studio 2022 Builtools on Windows 10 the other day.

It wasn't too happy with me, cause my version of Windows 10 is the Anniversary update (1607). In essence, it told me VS2022 wasn't build for this edition, and that I'd pretty much be on my own if any issues arise.

So these days, it's more likely MS will drop support for your o/s, long before D drops support for it ;-)

I also tried D on Windows XP 64bit the other day, and was surprised that dmd.exe no longer even executes on that platform :-(

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 07:40:40 UTC, forkit wrote:
> On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 05:27:58 UTC, Siemargl wrote:
>>
>> Deprecating platform is very painful sometimes.
>>
>> A long time ago, when D suddently drops support Win2000, my business just dropping D.
>
> Well I tried to install Visual Studio 2022 Builtools on Windows 10 the other day.
>
> It wasn't too happy with me, cause my version of Windows 10 is the Anniversary update (1607). In essence, it told me VS2022 wasn't build for this edition, and that I'd pretty much be on my own if any issues arise.
>
> So these days, it's more likely MS will drop support for your o/s, long before D drops support for it ;-)
>
> I also tried D on Windows XP 64bit the other day, and was surprised that dmd.exe no longer even executes on that platform :-(

I have written about a fix for that in the forums earlier

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 09:23:06 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:
>>
>> I also tried D on Windows XP 64bit the other day, and was surprised that dmd.exe no longer even executes on that platform :-(
>
> I have written about a fix for that in the forums earlier

found it thanks.

https://forum.dlang.org/post/jdwptzmjxemdelcuvysv@forum.dlang.org

works fine - but only on the '32bit' dmd.exe

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 10:56:56 UTC, forkit wrote:
> On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 09:23:06 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:
>>>
>>> I also tried D on Windows XP 64bit the other day, and was surprised that dmd.exe no longer even executes on that platform :-(
>>
>> I have written about a fix for that in the forums earlier
>
> found it thanks.
>
> https://forum.dlang.org/post/jdwptzmjxemdelcuvysv@forum.dlang.org
>
> works fine - but only on the '32bit' dmd.exe

btw. For anyone interested, this binary incompatibility with XP started from 2.091.0, as a consquence (it appears) of switching to compiling dmd.exe with ldc.

https://dlang.org/changelog/2.091.0.html#windows

On 2/4/2022 6:45 AM, Guillaume Piolat wrote:
> Would it hurt if 32-bit was removed from D? Not much, we would manage to call an older compiler.

The older compiler wouldn't be maintained, however, so would be of rapidly declining utility.

On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 01:49:05 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Saturday, 5 February 2022 at 00:21:17 UTC, bauss wrote:
>
>>
>> Personally I'm mostly a Windows user myself and even after using D for a decade I still find myself shooting myself in the foot once in a while trying to just build a simple project.
>>
>> I think the biggest problem on Windows is linking. It never really works out of the box.
>
> The only Windows-specific linker errors I've encountered in all my years of using D have been related to linking with C libraries that were compiled differently than my executable, i.e., they were built with MinGW, or they used MSVC settings that caused them to link with a different version of the C runtime. That happens in the C world, too.
>
> Linking on Linux has pitfalls also. The problem I've encountered the most is that the order that libraries are passed to the linker matters. I've also had issues with mistmatched libc versions.

Yeah, I think I might have exaggerated a little bit. It's not that I come across linker issues often and they're often fairly easy to resolve tbh

And it definitely wasn't meant to be seen as a "Windows is the only platform that has issues."