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Whilst I agree with you on all but mingw and cygwin, these tools are wildly different. Integrating microsoft's C/C++ toolchain into an existing makefile would b
by eptcyka 9y ago
Whilst I agree with you on all but mingw and cygwin, these tools are wildly different. Integrating microsoft's C/C++ toolchain into an existing makefile would be hell. And again, most people who have a mac don't have to buy the compiler. Most people don't buy extra software after the fact just to compile open source libraries. I can't imagine a reason to buy visual studio for personal use, and I can't imagine a reason as to why I'd dick around with visual studio in my free time.
As for mingq and cygwin, most regular people don't have it installed and configured. And cygwin and mingw are not _platforms_ which receive first party support, as unfortunate as that might be.
- jcadam 9y agoI once had to use cygwin to port an old C library from UNIX (I don't recall the flavor of UNIX) to windows. It involved editing makefiles to use the MSVC toolchain, amongst many other things. It was pure pain. Especially when the boss kept asking me what was taking so long (it's just a recompile right?).
- pjmlp 9y agoPeople that have a Mac already payed for the compiler. 500 € PC + Visual Studio vs 1000 € Mac.
- eptcyka 9y agoI don't believe that the majority of people who buy 500€ PCs would spend money on Visual Studio. In the Mac case, nobody pays for the compiler because Clang is open source - this is a massive oversimplification, but whilst the fact that Clang and Make are distributed in the standard OSX base install is a value add in my book, I don't believe that it's something that people pay for. Also, the people who buy Apple hardware are a completely different set of customers to those who buy 500€ PCs. However, this is all a bit moot as you and many others have pointed out that the community edition is out there and it is usable.