On Sunday, February 09, 2014 18:16:08 Steve Teale wrote:
> On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> > Popped into my head today.
> > 
> > What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
> > 
> > And why?
> 
> OK, I'm clear about why Linux, but 64 bit I'm less clear about. What's the attraction about a system that's a memory hog, but not noticeably quicker, and where you have to do cross compilation to make applications that are usable by the vast proportion of world computer users?

Cross compilation? If you're building on Linux, and you're developing software, you're either just distributing source (and thus not building it for _anyone_), or you're building it for several distros, which means worrying about deb and rpm and all that nonsense. Cross-compilation is trivial in comparison. Or do you mean having to cross compile for Windows? If you need to build something for Windows, then you build something for Windows - probably on a Windows machine. But why should I suffer through using Windows as my normal machine just because the majority of users do?

But really, most of the time, I don't care what other people might be using. I use my desktop for everything, not just development, so what target I might be creating software some portion of my time is pretty irrelevant. If I needed to be creating Windows software and couldn't develop it cross-platform enough to do it on Linux, I'd just switch to a Windows box to do that work and live in Linux the rest of the time. Fortunately, for work, what I do is cross-platform enough, and several of our products are on Linux, such that most of the time I'm in Linux, but I do sometimes have to use a Windows box to develop software at work. At home though, I rarely have any reason to touch Windows.

As for 64-bit, I couldn't possibly live in 32-bit land at this point. I always have dozens of Windows open across several virtual desktops on my home machine such that even if all of the programs had relatively small memory footprints, I'd eat through memory. At this particular moment, I'm using about 21.6 out of 64GB of memory on my machine, and most of the running applications use less than 100MB of memory - only 9 are using more than 200MB. Memory usage adds up _fast_ when have a lot of applications open, even without any memory hogs. But I'd also prefer to be able run programs that are memory hogs when I need to, so it's nice to have a lot of overhead (and with memory being as cheap as it is, I don't see much reason not to put as much memory in the box as it can hold). And actually, with 64GB, for the first time in years, I don't have memory problems (my last computer had only 16GB), and it's great. I rarely use anywhere near 32GB, so 32 would probably be enough, but I'd much rather have 64 and not worry about it at all.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would bother with 32-bit these days except maybe for mobile, where a lot of ARM chips are 32-bit. x86 chips have all been 64-bit for years now. If you're using 32-bit, you're just restricting yourself on how much memory you can use to little benefit as far as I can see. Even if all of the applications that you're running or building are 32-bit, you're still better off having the OS be in 64-bit. And you get more memory out of the deal even if you have as little as 4GB in the box. I wish that everything would move to 64-bit so that we wouldn't have to even worry about 32-bit anymore.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> so it's nice to have a lot of overhead (and with memory being as cheap as it
> is, I don't see much reason not to put as much memory in the box as it can

Jonathan, you live in a different world. Memory is not cheap everywhere - maybe not even available, and not everyone - probably a minority in fact in world terms, has a recent processor, or even enough memory slots.

Linux AMD64.

Windows 64bit Vista and onwards are now OK IMO but I've been a linux user for a very long time now. As a scarred ex-Windows 3.0 user I still compulsively ctrl-S after every sentence typed.

I have real concerns that Android/Java has gained huge momentum, Java is bearable but I'd far rather be using D.

On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> Popped into my head today.
>
> What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
>
> And why?

Linux 64bit here.

Why should I use a 32bit system? Currently I see only disadvantages. Linux is easier and more confortable to develop. And our servers use linux too (so software must run on linux).

On Tuesday, 11 February 2014 at 13:56:41 UTC, Andrea Fontana wrote:
> On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
>> Popped into my head today.
>>
>> What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
>>
>> And why?
>
> Linux 64bit here.
>
> Why should I use a 32bit system? Currently I see only disadvantages. Linux is easier and more confortable to develop. And our servers use linux too (so software must run on linux).

    Development:
Linux 64bit & 32bit

    Applications:
Windows
Mac OS X
(includes a certain amount of development on these platforms too, but mainly concerns system integration)

On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 19:58:48 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>> Developers with a decent system should have no problem at all
> building
> both 32-bit and 64-bit versions

Pensioner, limited budget, want to contribute?

On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> Popped into my head today.
>
> What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
>
> And why?

Linux x64 (OpenSuse 13.1): powerful and versatile environment.

On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> And you get more memory out of
> the deal even if you have as little as 4GB in the box. I wish that everything
> would move to 64-bit so that we wouldn't have to even worry about 32-bit
> anymore.

What's the advantage of having 64-bit OS on 4gb RAM?

The fact is cheap configurations became available for a wider userbase with smaller income, who wouldn't think to buy a notebook not so long ago. And you sure can't persuade them to spend more money, 32-bit OS works and once installed it will run long (you don't upgrade notebooks), as long as it works, there's no reason to fix it.

On Wednesday, 12 February 2014 at 20:23:55 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> And you get more memory out of
>> the deal even if you have as little as 4GB in the box. I wish that everything
>> would move to 64-bit so that we wouldn't have to even worry about 32-bit
>> anymore.
>
> What's the advantage of having 64-bit OS on 4gb RAM?
>

x32 is the "obvious" solution, best of both worlds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI
... I really wonder why it has not yet gone mainstream.

On Wednesday, 12 February 2014 at 17:01:26 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 19:58:48 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>>> Developers with a decent system should have no problem at all
>> building
>> both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
>
> Pensioner, limited budget, want to contribute?

just imagine a pensioner compiling chrome(or other big project) for all OS'es on one box all at once...