Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Windows Based Solutions and Linux Developer Hostility

[Stephane Fillod]

G'd morning Joshua,

On Fri, Sep 26, 2003, Joshua Hayworth wrote:
> I primarily use C# on the .NET platform, but I am slowly learning the inns and
> outs of C++ using both Visual Studio.NET 2003 and Gcc on the Linux platform.
> Needlesss to say, I haven't gotten that far yet.  I hope to help Mr. Rodd Judd
> out in the process of converting GNU Radio to the win32 platform and maybe 
> even
> write a wrapper for .NET use.

I can help too. I've done it for Hamlib, and thanks to GNU tools, 
it was possible.

BTW, what are the remaining blocking parts in the Gnuradio port to win32?

> I realize that this is a Linux based list and I may be starting a huge flame
> war, but can somebody help me understand this massive hostility for Microsoft
> and the Windows platform?

first rule of a a good flame war: reply immediately :))

Don't worry, there's no need for flame war. This list is not hostile to
non-Linux system. Actually, Gnuradio has already been ported successfully
to other OS like Solaris and MacOS X, and most probably to *BSD (any
care to confirm?).
To me, the practical reason Gnuradio firstly ran under Linux is because 
of historical reason (pSpectra ancestor). Now GNU advocates would have
another language.. ;-)

> Maybe I'm just young and nieve, but I'm just not understanding how developing
> for one platform can be any more difficult that developing for another.  It's
> not like you don't have the documentation that you need
> (http://msdn.microsoft.com, http://www.codeproject.com/, ... Et all).

Well, I'm young too, but just try yourself to understand (software) history.
Knowing Linux is not enough. For example, I already managed to get my
hands on the followings UN*Xish systems: SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, SPIX,
Minix, various BSD, OS X, DEC-OSF, SCO, ...
Now, try to port some code from one of these system to another one.
The concern is: you develop on OS Foo*ix, but you would like to be able
to port to any other system.
It would be impossble if all these "vendors" would not have agreed on 
a standard API following the POSIX and Single UNIX standards (oh yeah,
with some of them being closer than others..).

That's why projects tend to prefer an API that has good portability.
POSIX has quite good adoption and portability. 

Unfortunately, the Windows system which came long time after UNIX,
decided to be a proprietary OS, with its own proprietary API.
No matter the documentation, sometimes this can really be a pain
to achieve port to win32, hence the apparent hostility for a closed
OS badly designed, that could have used POSIX _standard_.

Does this help in your understanding of the situation?


73,
Stephane (F8CFE)

Note: for all other readers of the list, feel free to comment/correct me
if you feel I'm wrong, or not clear.