6 ms·

It's unfortunate there are no Windows binaries (well apparently there are no binaries yet period, but I mean they don't plan on binaries until some time out). W

by ergo98 16y ago

It's unfortunate there are no Windows binaries (well apparently there are no binaries yet period, but I mean they don't plan on binaries until some time out). We could host Linux VMs, but ideally we just run Windows binaries and get rid of the abstraction. That is the case for a large number of these products. At best offering a terrible Cygwin port. In the Windows world the premiere product right now is the beta of AppFabric, but almost no one uses that and it has an absurd list of dependencies that preclude many uses.

wmf 16y ago
Porting software to a completely different culture isn't cheap and there's little incentive for volunteer open source projects to do it. If enough software that you want isn't available on Windows, it's probably cheaper for you to learn Unix.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Where did I say I didn't know Unix? The problem is that for some deployed solutions adding in Linux boxes simply because they host one piece of software isn't optimal, so "native" solutions are chosen instead. We aren't talking about a product that is tightly coupled with the OS (or at least it shouldn't be).
  - jbooth 16y ago
    It should be, actually, if it's going to be fast. Memcached is fast because it optimizes interaction with the I/O layers -- you can't stay portable if you do that. EDIT: Actually, you can use libevent for some subset of these cases and get speed+portability, but I'm pretty sure memcached predates libevent by quite a bit so they're not. So there's your answer.
    - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
      The first commit to memcached on github is http://github.com/memcached/memcached/tree/32f382b605b4565bddfae5c9d082af3bfd30cf02 http://github.com/memcached/memcached/tree/32f382b605b4565bd..., which uses libevent. libevent has been around for a while...
      - silentbicycle 16y ago
        Memcached predates github by quite a bit, actually. It was originally made as a caching layer for livejournal, and IIRC was made in the early half of the 00s. (Having a hard time finding an exact date, though.)
        dlsspy 16y ago
        If you want to know the exact date, look at the link you're suggesting is wrong.
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        You mean the one where an existing project with several years of history has its development tree imported into github as its first commit? I remember the memcached project being announced, and I'm pretty sure it predated github by five years or more.
        dlsspy 16y ago
        I have no idea what link you clicked on. The one above says this: committing memcached bradfitz (author) May 27, 2003 Specifically, that was Tue May 27 07:19:11 2003 +0000. I spent a long night back in 2008 recreating that history as accurately as possible. It involved a couple of git repositories, subversion repositories, and a lot of google and mailing list searches to ensure that every one who ever contributed to the project was properly recognized. You can read more about that process here: http://www.mail-archive.com/memcached@googlegroups.com/msg00503.html http://www.mail-archive.com/memcached@googlegroups.com/msg00...
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        My apologies, and thanks for the exact date. I missed that the github commit date was in 2003. (If you miss that, your reply comes off as really snarky. Mine was a bit blunt, too.)
    - reynolds 16y ago
      memcached actually uses libevent. Edit: oops, JoachimSchipper beat me to it
- henrikschroder 16y ago
  There's plenty of people that want to volunteer porting projects to Windows, there are other hurdles such as Microsoft refusing to ship a C99 compiler, and getting the Windows port accepted into the main repo for the project.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    Huh? Everyone builds with mingw. We shipped pure win32 desktop and service apps that were compiled with mingw. The difficulties in porting to Windows are slightly more technical than just the availability of a free C compiler with C99 support, and project management politics.
    - henrikschroder 16y ago
      The problem is that MingW is a completely alien environment for the vast majority of C developers on Windows, and Visual Studio is a completely alien environment for POSIX projects. That way you can't use the majority of Windows C developers, many of whom would love to contribute to open source projects, and who has the knowledge of the technical difficulties of porting to Windows.
siculars 16y ago
Your post is just another nail in the MS coffin. The simple fact is that the latest, greatest hotness is just not playing in the MS ecosystem. Virtually all NoSQL systems support windows as an afterthought if at all. Not to mention hotness like nodejs. The bottom line is that the people who make the new shinnies just don't play on MS boxes and could care less if their toys ever play on MS boxes. No, I'm not talking 'enterprise'.

by ergo98 16y ago

wmf 16y ago

Porting software to a completely different culture isn't cheap and there's little incentive for volunteer open source projects to do it. If enough software that you want isn't available on Windows, it's probably cheaper for you to learn Unix.

ergo98 16y ago
Where did I say I didn't know Unix? The problem is that for some deployed solutions adding in Linux boxes simply because they host one piece of software isn't optimal, so "native" solutions are chosen instead. We aren't talking about a product that is tightly coupled with the OS (or at least it shouldn't be).
- jbooth 16y ago
  It should be, actually, if it's going to be fast. Memcached is fast because it optimizes interaction with the I/O layers -- you can't stay portable if you do that. EDIT: Actually, you can use libevent for some subset of these cases and get speed+portability, but I'm pretty sure memcached predates libevent by quite a bit so they're not. So there's your answer.
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    The first commit to memcached on github is http://github.com/memcached/memcached/tree/32f382b605b4565bddfae5c9d082af3bfd30cf02 http://github.com/memcached/memcached/tree/32f382b605b4565bd..., which uses libevent. libevent has been around for a while...
    - silentbicycle 16y ago
      Memcached predates github by quite a bit, actually. It was originally made as a caching layer for livejournal, and IIRC was made in the early half of the 00s. (Having a hard time finding an exact date, though.)
      - dlsspy 16y ago
        If you want to know the exact date, look at the link you're suggesting is wrong.
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        You mean the one where an existing project with several years of history has its development tree imported into github as its first commit? I remember the memcached project being announced, and I'm pretty sure it predated github by five years or more.
        dlsspy 16y ago
        I have no idea what link you clicked on. The one above says this: committing memcached bradfitz (author) May 27, 2003 Specifically, that was Tue May 27 07:19:11 2003 +0000. I spent a long night back in 2008 recreating that history as accurately as possible. It involved a couple of git repositories, subversion repositories, and a lot of google and mailing list searches to ensure that every one who ever contributed to the project was properly recognized. You can read more about that process here: http://www.mail-archive.com/memcached@googlegroups.com/msg00503.html http://www.mail-archive.com/memcached@googlegroups.com/msg00...
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        My apologies, and thanks for the exact date. I missed that the github commit date was in 2003. (If you miss that, your reply comes off as really snarky. Mine was a bit blunt, too.)
  - reynolds 16y ago
    memcached actually uses libevent. Edit: oops, JoachimSchipper beat me to it
henrikschroder 16y ago
There's plenty of people that want to volunteer porting projects to Windows, there are other hurdles such as Microsoft refusing to ship a C99 compiler, and getting the Windows port accepted into the main repo for the project.
- mahmud 16y ago
  Huh? Everyone builds with mingw. We shipped pure win32 desktop and service apps that were compiled with mingw. The difficulties in porting to Windows are slightly more technical than just the availability of a free C compiler with C99 support, and project management politics.
  - henrikschroder 16y ago
    The problem is that MingW is a completely alien environment for the vast majority of C developers on Windows, and Visual Studio is a completely alien environment for POSIX projects. That way you can't use the majority of Windows C developers, many of whom would love to contribute to open source projects, and who has the knowledge of the technical difficulties of porting to Windows.

siculars 16y ago

Your post is just another nail in the MS coffin. The simple fact is that the latest, greatest hotness is just not playing in the MS ecosystem. Virtually all NoSQL systems support windows as an afterthought if at all. Not to mention hotness like nodejs. The bottom line is that the people who make the new shinnies just don't play on MS boxes and could care less if their toys ever play on MS boxes. No, I'm not talking 'enterprise'.