Re: GLIB, libffi and Windows

[Kean Johnston <kean johnston gmail com>]

> asking for "love" without giving anything back in return except
> complaints after the fact is not conducive to a positive development
Check your facts. I am hard at work trying to get Win32 up to speed. I'm 
submitting patches when they are ready. I am doing a LOT of debugging, 
experimentation etc. I may not be able to fill Tor's shoes but I am very 
much hard at work making sure Win32 doesn't "lag".

> environment. the GLib and GTK+ maintainers are not experts on Windows,
> we said that multiple times; hackers with Windows experience should
> join if they want to be represented.
Which is exactly what I am doing :P

> > The "creeping featurism" of what is supposed to
> > be a small, system abstracting library should be cause for concern.
>
> I think you haven't been keeping up to the development of GLib in the
> past decade. GLib is a platform library, and has been for a long
> while. it's not *just* a small system abstraction library - or at
> least, it's not just that any more.
You say potato, I say potahto. To me a platform library *IS* just an 
abstraction library. Sure it has a bit more "stuff" than just wrapping 
things like the differences in snprintf() implementations but a 
not-insignificant portion of GLib is just that: abstracting away minor 
system differences to create a universal platform. Something it does very 
well mind you.

I realize it is not the project's goal, but my *personal* agenda is to make 
Gtk+/GLib development trivial on Windows. Professionally, personally and 
religiously I'm a UNIX man, but one thing UNIX lacks is some of the better 
apps available on Windows. It may not change the world but if we can remove 
one more barrier to Windows developers being able to easily port to UNIX we 
may start seeing more of them. With Linux having a bigger and bigger market 
share it is becoming more attractive for people to consider porting to it, 
but not if that development costs major dollars, and having a platform that 
works equally well on both OSes drastically reduces that cost. It's worth 
bearing in mind when GNOME- or UNIX-centric decisions are made, that's all 
I am saying.

Kean