Asp Forum - Re: One-Click Installer: MinGW? or VC2005?

Sean O'Halpin

7/18/2006 11:10:00 PM

On 7/18/06, Curt Hibbs <ml.chibbs@gmail.com> wrote:
> The One-Click Ruby Installer for Windows is at a cross-roads. The C++
> compiler situation on Windows has become a complete mess because of subtle
> incompatibilities and has, consequently, become a big headache for me and
> extension writers.
>
> I need to decide whether future versions of the One-Click Installer are
> built with MinGW or MS VC2005 Express (both compilers are free). My bias has
> been to go with VC2005 on the theory that the MS compiler will always be the
> most compatible with Windows, itself.
>
Having used MS C since before it became Visual I can certainly attest
to it being a strong compiler. However, over the past few years it
seems as if MS has gone out of its way to alienate long term users of
their programming products. And it's not just the incompatibilities
introduced in VS.NET - look at what's happened to VB, OLE and MFC.

People spent 10 years becoming expert in these technologies just to
see them thrown away.

My experience is that you cannot write code using an MS platform and
expect it to be even compilable 5 years later. This is one of the main
reasons why I have switched to Open Source wherever possible - I have
code I wrote 20 years ago written in K&R C that still compiles and
works but anything I wrote in the 90s is a complete write-off.

As for the toolchain - while it may seem alien to people who have only
ever programmed with MS products, it really isn't that hard to get
your head around. More and more people are developing in a mixed
environment - e.g. coding on Windows workstations and deploying on
Linux servers. To have one set of tools and commands to remember makes
a lot of sense.

As for MS products being more compatible with Windows - if you've ever
come across the problem of trying to compile across different versions
of MSCVRT*.DLL you'll find that hard to swallow.

Personally I'm not interested in the slightest in making Ruby more
friendly to Windows but I am interested in making Windows more
friendly to Ruby.

Nearly all the good stuff we enjoy in Ruby on Windows comes from its
*nix background - using MinGW makes it a heck of a lot easier to
compile all those libs.

I say go for MinGW - it will still be here in 5 years time and it
narrows the gap between the Windows and *nix development environments.

My 2p

Regards,
Sean

6 Answers

Reggie Mr

7/19/2006 4:46:00 AM

Sean O'halpin wrote:
> On 7/18/06, Curt Hibbs <ml.chibbs@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The One-Click Ruby Installer for Windows is at a cross-roads. The C++
>> compiler situation on Windows has become a complete mess because of subtle
>> incompatibilities and has, consequently, become a big headache for me and
>> extension writers.
>>
>> I need to decide whether future versions of the One-Click Installer are
>> built with MinGW or MS VC2005 Express (both compilers are free). My bias has
>> been to go with VC2005 on the theory that the MS compiler will always be the
>> most compatible with Windows, itself.
>>
> Having used MS C since before it became Visual I can certainly attest
> to it being a strong compiler. However, over the past few years it
> seems as if MS has gone out of its way to alienate long term users of
> their programming products. And it's not just the incompatibilities
> introduced in VS.NET - look at what's happened to VB, OLE and MFC.
>
MS needs to evolve also, do you expect MS to continue to enhance MS-DOS.
It can't sit still while the competition passes it by and the fanatics
complain about security.

You can't bitch about MS and then bitch because they try to make it
better.

> People spent 10 years becoming expert in these technologies just to
> see them thrown away.
>
> My experience is that you cannot write code using an MS platform and
> expect it to be even compilable 5 years later. This is one of the main
> reasons why I have switched to Open Source wherever possible - I have
> code I wrote 20 years ago written in K&R C that still compiles and
> works but anything I wrote in the 90s is a complete write-off.
>

You aren't making any sense. MS is a very ANSI standard compiler, so if
you "truly" wrote it to be K&R it should work.

> As for the toolchain - while it may seem alien to people who have only
> ever programmed with MS products, it really isn't that hard to get
> your head around. More and more people are developing in a mixed
> environment - e.g. coding on Windows workstations and deploying on
> Linux servers. To have one set of tools and commands to remember makes
> a lot of sense.
>

It make a lot of sense to those who have used it before.
It you are new to Ruby and need to compile it for the first and then
have to go thru the problem of setting up a toolchain, MinGW, etc...this
becomes a huge turnoff for using Ruby.

Windows products should use Windows compiler...VC++.

> As for MS products being more compatible with Windows - if you've ever
> come across the problem of trying to compile across different versions
> of MSCVRT*.DLL you'll find that hard to swallow.
>
I haven't experienced, but I have heard of others who have.

> Personally I'm not interested in the slightest in making Ruby more
> friendly to Windows but I am interested in making Windows more
> friendly to Ruby.
>

They you should leave this thread...we are trying to find a way to make
both sides happy and bring more users and developers to the Ruby
corner...Linux and Windows.

> Nearly all the good stuff we enjoy in Ruby on Windows comes from its
> *nix background - using MinGW makes it a heck of a lot easier to
> compile all those libs.
>
This has NOTHING to do with which compiler to use for Windows.
Windows is Windows, not *nix!
You are just a Windows hater and your comments don't hold any weight
here.

> I say go for MinGW - it will still be here in 5 years time and it
> narrows the gap between the Windows and *nix development environments.
>
But it widens the gap on Windows and the evolution of Windows.

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

David Balmain

7/19/2006 7:14:00 AM

On 7/19/06, Reggie Mr <buppcpp@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sean O'halpin wrote:
> > People spent 10 years becoming expert in these technologies just to
> > see them thrown away.
> >
> > My experience is that you cannot write code using an MS platform and
> > expect it to be even compilable 5 years later. This is one of the main
> > reasons why I have switched to Open Source wherever possible - I have
> > code I wrote 20 years ago written in K&R C that still compiles and
> > works but anything I wrote in the 90s is a complete write-off.
> >
>
> You aren't making any sense. MS is a very ANSI standard compiler, so if
> you "truly" wrote it to be K&R it should work.

Sean's making plenty of sense. His K&R code does still work. It's the
code he wrote since then using certain MS technologies that is a
complete write-off.

> > As for the toolchain - while it may seem alien to people who have only
> > ever programmed with MS products, it really isn't that hard to get
> > your head around. More and more people are developing in a mixed
> > environment - e.g. coding on Windows workstations and deploying on
> > Linux servers. To have one set of tools and commands to remember makes
> > a lot of sense.
> >
>
> It make a lot of sense to those who have used it before.
> It you are new to Ruby and need to compile it for the first and then
> have to go thru the problem of setting up a toolchain, MinGW, etc...this
> becomes a huge turnoff for using Ruby.

No one is suggesting that every windows user will have to compile
their own binaries. We are talking about which compiler extension
writers and the One-Click-Installer team should use. End users
shouldn't know the difference.

> Windows products should use Windows compiler...VC++.

And Ruby is a Windows product???

> > As for MS products being more compatible with Windows - if you've ever
> > come across the problem of trying to compile across different versions
> > of MSCVRT*.DLL you'll find that hard to swallow.
> >
> I haven't experienced, but I have heard of others who have.
>
> > Personally I'm not interested in the slightest in making Ruby more
> > friendly to Windows but I am interested in making Windows more
> > friendly to Ruby.
> >
>
> They you should leave this thread...we are trying to find a way to make
> both sides happy and bring more users and developers to the Ruby
> corner...Linux and Windows.
>
> > Nearly all the good stuff we enjoy in Ruby on Windows comes from its
> > *nix background - using MinGW makes it a heck of a lot easier to
> > compile all those libs.
> >
> This has NOTHING to do with which compiler to use for Windows.
> Windows is Windows, not *nix!
> You are just a Windows hater and your comments don't hold any weight
> here.

Huh??? Perhaps you meant *nix instead of Windows in that first
sentence. In either case I find Sean's comments very relevent. Most of
the great extensions in Ruby as well as Ruby itself were built
originally in *nix environments. I know for me personally, people are
constantly asking me to create some Windows binaries for Ferret and
it'd be a lot easier for me if MinGW was the default compiler for Ruby
on Windows. As it is, Windows users will have to stick with the (much
slower) pure Ruby version for a little longer yet.

> > I say go for MinGW - it will still be here in 5 years time and it
> > narrows the gap between the Windows and *nix development environments.
> >
> But it widens the gap on Windows and the evolution of Windows.

How so? Can you be more specific.

My vote is for MinGW.

Cheers,
Dave

Leslie Viljoen

7/19/2006 10:14:00 AM

On 7/19/06, David Balmain <dbalmain.ml@gmail.com> wrote:
> My vote is for MinGW.

Mine too. MinGW + MSYS is great, just what I have been looking for,
and it seems much faster than Cygwin.

Sorry to pollute this thread but may I ask which MinGW/MSYS you use?
The download page is massive and the "current" and "candidate"
sections don't even have a windows installer. I finally used
MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe and MSYS-1.0.9.exe from "previous". I now see
there's "proposed" right at the bottom with MinGW-5.0.2.exe but no
MSYS. What is best for building Ruby?

Les

stu

7/19/2006 12:10:00 PM

Sean O'Halpin wrote:
> People spent 10 years becoming expert in these technologies just to
> see them thrown away.

in some cases, its called progress.

> Nearly all the good stuff we enjoy in Ruby on Windows comes from its
> *nix background - using MinGW makes it a heck of a lot easier to
> compile all those libs.

it just proves ruby is full of unixism and is unixcentric as opposed to
being
windows centric. Thats its heratige, it was written on unix and uses
what it knows.

Now me, I feel left out in the cold since I use OpenWatcom...

the problem I think, ruby assumes too much about your system.

what needs to be done with the one click installer is not have it
assume its
on the system that built it. it would be nice, if there was a generic
config
that could be changed so MAKE=nmake.exe and CC=cl.exe that overrides
whatever ruby is assuming...

There is no real easy way out and I tink that mingw will/should get
ratified
as 'TheOne(tm)'. As long as people understand that MinGW is minimal and
some full blown './configure && make' its not designed to be cygwin,
that Min is for Minimal.

In the ruby extension case, 'minimal' should be enough to build any
required extensions.
Now packaging it with the one click installer would be nice, we could
assume then (ooh assumptions!) that a specific version of ruby on
windows will have a specific version of mingw + supporting cast
members....

-stu

Ara.T.Howard

7/19/2006 10:07:00 PM

Bill Kelly

7/21/2006 4:06:00 AM

From: "Reggie Mr" <buppcpp@yahoo.com>
>
> MS needs to evolve also, do you expect MS to continue to enhance MS-DOS.

Since you asked... No. <grin> But MS-DOS is frightfully in need of enhancement,
evolution, and (in non-mystical terms) intelligent design. Not that I expect any of
that to occur. :)

> It you are new to Ruby and need to compile it for the first and then
> have to go thru the problem of setting up a toolchain, MinGW, etc...this
> becomes a huge turnoff for using Ruby.
>
> Windows products should use Windows compiler...VC++.

I'll admit I used to agree. Back when ruby on Windows was built on cygwin,
I used to run into weird problems like a compiled-in 256-meg RAM allocation
limit, or such.

Back then, the choice between cygwin and VC++ seemed clear.

Now that I'm trying to write applications in ruby on Linux, OS X, and Windows,
and am dealing with building non-standard extensions on Windows like
RMagick, math3d, OpenGL, freeglut, FTGL, OpenAL, ruby-gstreamer, I
really think it would be a time-saver to have a consistent extension-build
toolchain between these platforms.

So even though my vote several years ago would have been for VC++,
It's for MinGW/msys now.

Regards,

Bill

comp.lang.ruby

Re: One-Click Installer: MinGW? or VC2005?