Dear GSL Development Team,
RE: Interest in Windows port of GSL
Thanks for your efforts in GSL - it is a very useful package.
I am writing to inform you of my Work In Progress in creating a Windows port.
My request and enquiry is when I finish the Windows port of GSL - would you be
interested in incorporating my changes into the main GSL code base.
Just to wet your taste-buds, I have put some notes of my progress at:
http://xtechnotes.blogspot.com/2011/11/notes-gsl.html
see the section called "Building using Visual Studio C/C++"
please note this is WORK IN PROGRESS, we can collaborate once I have finished
and am confident after all the testing.
At this stage I am just asking if you have future interest to assimilate my
work.
Reason for Windows PORT:
1. More reasons to have Windows GSL because Windows proprietary Stats library
are much more expensive. In the Linux world at least you can have open source
functions from various sources - of course none as comprehensive as GSL.
2. Windows GSL already exist for 1.8, 1.12 - Yes I found these. BUT they are
ported and made available as is. Their binaries may be available but they are
separate from the GSL development effort. So when GSL upgrades, these versions
are obsolete. More importantly these Windows port authors do not list how they
port their code, so future windows users cannot learn from them if they wish to
port future versions.
3. My port is using MSVC and maybe later Intel C/C++ for Windows. I tried
Windows-Linux emulators/environments like MinGW and have run into problems. I
have tried these for many days with lots of effort but I think MinGW is not
robust enough to handle GSL for Windows. In the Windows world, MSVC and Intel
C/C++ are quite common in scientific work and I am gearing towards these
platform.
Conclusion
Basically non of the Windows GSL option scattered across the world works for
me. And none of those people who ported to Windows seem to want to share their
techniques and instructions for porting to Windows. So I am doing my own port
of GSL using MSVC.
Once I finish it I am willing to share my work with the GSL Development team. I
am willing to show you what CHANGES I need to make to GSL to make it work. Most
importantly the CHANGES that I make is intended to be compatible with the
current LINUX-GNU/GSL. GSL would NOT need two separate code base for Windows
and Linux. My vision is if my changes are incorporated into the main GSL code,
then any user can download the source and compile simply using Microsoft Visual
Studio C/C++ and for Linux user, nothing would be changed.
Thanks for your consideration.