4 ms·

> he only thing that's "dead" is the notion of being able to get away with just writing a native Windows version, and ignoring Macs (or vice-versa). Linux and

> he only thing that's "dead" is the notion of being able to get away with just writing a native Windows version, and ignoring Macs (or vice-versa). Linux and BSD however can safely be ignored. (Writing this from an Ubuntu laptop.)

sevensor 8y ago
If you're writing Qt, getting it to work on Linux if it already works on Windows probably isn't terrible. It certainly hasn't been for the PyQt GUI program I work on. Making a working Qt/X11 program work on Windows, on the other hand -- that could be painful.
- danieldk 8y ago
  Making a working Qt/X11 program work on Windows, on the other hand -- that could be painful. I maintain a Qt application for Linux/macOS/Windows, with in total ~70kloc the last time I looked. It started as a Linux application, but porting to Windows was not a lot of effort and the amount of platform specific code is very small. The painful part on Windows are some non-Qt dependencies, such as libxml2, libxslt, DB XML, etc. The port to macOS required much more platform-specific code to implement macOS-specific behavior (such as keeping the application running when the last window closes), building working, signed application bundles, etc.
loup-vaillant 8y ago
(I was being sarcastic, by the way. That Linux isn't even mentioned in a sub-thread that talks about portability is disappointing.)
- StevePerkins 8y ago
  Must everything be so carefully screened for triggers? The GitHub project behind this overall thread mentions ONLY support for Linux/Docker, for crying out loud.
  - loup-vaillant 8y ago
    Well… it at least indicates that most people here don't use a free OS (even if we exclude Windows), and don't care much about free software. (Permissive licences however are loved, mostly because they allow proprietary derivative works.) We used to talk about Windows/Linux for portability topics (conveniently ignoring BSD and others, I reckon). Somehow, Apple took over much of Linux's mindshare. And not just here. Many of my coworkers are asking for apple laptops. A huge fraction of keynote presenters use an apple laptop. All that is a bit sad, considering Apple is even worse than Microsoft, freedom wise. They popularised the digital prison, that was originally confined mostly to game consoles. I'll never forgive that, no matter how much they contribute to open source.
    - oever 8y ago
      I for one think software freedom is very important.

sevensor 8y ago

If you're writing Qt, getting it to work on Linux if it already works on Windows probably isn't terrible. It certainly hasn't been for the PyQt GUI program I work on. Making a working Qt/X11 program work on Windows, on the other hand -- that could be painful.

danieldk 8y ago
Making a working Qt/X11 program work on Windows, on the other hand -- that could be painful. I maintain a Qt application for Linux/macOS/Windows, with in total ~70kloc the last time I looked. It started as a Linux application, but porting to Windows was not a lot of effort and the amount of platform specific code is very small. The painful part on Windows are some non-Qt dependencies, such as libxml2, libxslt, DB XML, etc. The port to macOS required much more platform-specific code to implement macOS-specific behavior (such as keeping the application running when the last window closes), building working, signed application bundles, etc.

loup-vaillant 8y ago

(I was being sarcastic, by the way. That Linux isn't even mentioned in a sub-thread that talks about portability is disappointing.)

StevePerkins 8y ago
Must everything be so carefully screened for triggers? The GitHub project behind this overall thread mentions ONLY support for Linux/Docker, for crying out loud.
- loup-vaillant 8y ago
  Well… it at least indicates that most people here don't use a free OS (even if we exclude Windows), and don't care much about free software. (Permissive licences however are loved, mostly because they allow proprietary derivative works.) We used to talk about Windows/Linux for portability topics (conveniently ignoring BSD and others, I reckon). Somehow, Apple took over much of Linux's mindshare. And not just here. Many of my coworkers are asking for apple laptops. A huge fraction of keynote presenters use an apple laptop. All that is a bit sad, considering Apple is even worse than Microsoft, freedom wise. They popularised the digital prison, that was originally confined mostly to game consoles. I'll never forgive that, no matter how much they contribute to open source.
  - oever 8y ago
    I for one think software freedom is very important.