Re: Fwd: Plans for GTK+ Bundles for win32 and win64?

[Jernej Simončič <jernej|s-gmane eternallybored org>]

On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:21:06 +0200, Kean Johnston wrote:

>> Note that many of us build programs with MinGW, so for such suite to be
>> useful, it should provide GCC-compatible import libraries.
> If MinGW can't use standard microsoft import libraries that (from my 
> perspective) is Someone Else's Problem. The entire set of libraries 
> compiles easily enough on MinGW I am not concerning myself with it. The 
> VAST majority of Windows developers use the Microsoft tools. Some people 
> from a Linux background prefer the familiarity of MinGW but they are a 
> fraction of the Windows development audience. A TINY fraction. However i 
> suspect someone has written a .lib to .a converter somewhere and theres no 
> reason that can't be run against whatever the MS tools produce.

AFAIK, VC can use gccs .a files directly, but the other way around isn't
possible (since the .lib files don't contain something that gcc/ld needs).

As for Windows programmers preferring VS, this may be true, but is it also
true when taking in account developers that are likely to use GTK+? Also,
does it even make sense to use the DDK compiler then, given that most VS
users won't, which'll introduce CRT problems again?

>> What happens when eg. Gimp links to glib228.dll, and then the user
>> downloads a plugin linked with earlier version of glib?
> How is that any different on Windows than any other OS? Also, if its linked 
> against glib227.dll they can just have that installed too. Also, one would 
> HOPE that glib228 is a superset of glib227 or any previous version so even 
> if we named the DLL's a bit less specifically (and just used, for example, 
> glib2.dll) that still shouldn't be a problem. As long as glib2.dll remains 
> ABI compatible and doesn't allow an older version to install over a newer 
> versions I don't see a problem?

So, instead of every program packing it's private copy of GTK+ stack, you
instead propose the common GTK+ stack to include every micro-version of the
DLL that was ever distributed? I don't really see the point of that,
especially since AFAIK, great care is taken that ABI is backwards
compatible.

-- 
< Jernej Simončič ><><><><>< http://eternallybored.org/ >