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> Pkg-config, on the other hand, is rather small. The initial implementation was bulky enough to annoy people into at least two rewrites, but the concepts are f

> Pkg-config, on the other hand, is rather small. The initial implementation was bulky enough to annoy people into at least two rewrites, but the concepts are few and the requirements on the host build system practically nonexistent. yet all these years and it's still a pain on Windows with the Visual Studio world. And if it doesn't work with VS (as in, you can have a VS solution which uses pkg-config automatically to find libraries / flags / ... without having to fudge with scripting it yourself) it's 100% irrelevant to any cross-platform discussion (and thus most of C / C++ / native ... software development).

mananaysiempre 4y ago
There’s “builds on Windows” cross-platform and there’s “works on a big-endian MIPS router with a 2.6.x series Linux kernel and an ancient Busybox” cross-platform. And a lot more. All of those are important to somebody. So “100% irrelevant to any cross-platform discussion” for lack of Windows support sounds overexaggerated to me, let alone for lack of Visual Studio support. Also, well. Before the article under discussion, there was no decent Windows support, because no pkg-config user was willing to donate their time or spend their money to improve the Microsoft Windows ecosystem. Now somebody came around and there is. Perhaps that will happen to the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem as well, in time, or perhaps not. Probably not going to be me, though. (In the case of CMake, the support appeared when Microsoft spent their money on improving the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem, because C++ programmers not using Visual Studio became numerous enough, and CMake became popular enough among them, that not being to interoperate with their work diminished the IDE’s value. I don’t see that happening with pkg-config, mainly because a lot of its usage is in the C world, and Microsoft doesn’t really care all that much about that.)
saurik 4y ago
If you are serious about cross-platform, the answer is simple, and has been the same for decades: don't use Visual Studio to build for Windows, as it isn't offering you anything of value. This answer used to be maybe a bit controversial--hell: I even supported Visual Studio for years back in the early '00s--but now even Chrome builds with clang... if it is good enough for Chrome, it is good enough for you.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  the main soft I develop (https://ossia.io https://ossia.io) has been built through clang/libc++ on msw for 4+ years now so you are preaching to the choir, but many companies insist in building with msvc and you cannot just tell them "no"

mananaysiempre 4y ago

There’s “builds on Windows” cross-platform and there’s “works on a big-endian MIPS router with a 2.6.x series Linux kernel and an ancient Busybox” cross-platform. And a lot more. All of those are important to somebody. So “100% irrelevant to any cross-platform discussion” for lack of Windows support sounds overexaggerated to me, let alone for lack of Visual Studio support. Also, well. Before the article under discussion, there was no decent Windows support, because no pkg-config user was willing to donate their time or spend their money to improve the Microsoft Windows ecosystem. Now somebody came around and there is. Perhaps that will happen to the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem as well, in time, or perhaps not. Probably not going to be me, though. (In the case of CMake, the support appeared when Microsoft spent their money on improving the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem, because C++ programmers not using Visual Studio became numerous enough, and CMake became popular enough among them, that not being to interoperate with their work diminished the IDE’s value. I don’t see that happening with pkg-config, mainly because a lot of its usage is in the C world, and Microsoft doesn’t really care all that much about that.)

saurik 4y ago

If you are serious about cross-platform, the answer is simple, and has been the same for decades: don't use Visual Studio to build for Windows, as it isn't offering you anything of value. This answer used to be maybe a bit controversial--hell: I even supported Visual Studio for years back in the early '00s--but now even Chrome builds with clang... if it is good enough for Chrome, it is good enough for you.

jcelerier 4y ago
the main soft I develop (https://ossia.io https://ossia.io) has been built through clang/libc++ on msw for 4+ years now so you are preaching to the choir, but many companies insist in building with msvc and you cannot just tell them "no"