On Jan 3, 7:04 pm, Gary W. [email protected] wrote:
particular platform there is more continuity between different libc versions and only a single prevalent compiler avoiding various object code linkage problems.
Windows Binary Distribution
– same situation as Unix but the enclaves are Windows variations
of NT, XP, Vista and all the different compiler/object code
incarnations. Less common ground to work with. The CLR
is yet another windows binary context to be considered.
On *nix, all the binaries must be compiled and linked to the same
version of the C runtime.
On Windows, different programs can use its own copy of the C runtime
(MSVCRT), use the system wide one or different version available also
system-wide.
Share libraries (dlls) loaded by some application cannot mix the C
runtimes.
Windows Source Distribution
in Windows. If the build-chain isn’t predictable then it is
going to be pretty hard to avoid an n*m amount of work to get
arbitrary collection of n-packages to work together in m different
Windows environments.
I’ll like to quote your message in a future blog post regarding this
issue
Sounds like the right place to focus developer energy. Also
seems like that a Ruby/Rake combo that could be built with
an absolute minimum of external dependencies would be a great
tool for bootstrapping a full-featured build-chain.
Been under that road
Here is a really crazy idea. Instead of trying to construct
a build environment on each and every Windows box what if the
build environment was available via the Internet? So a small
tool would query the local system and then instruct a remote
system to build the appropriate dlls/applications for the local
machine. Lots of security implications since you would have
to trust the code that was being delivered by the remote
build tool but of course if you are downloading and installing
a build-tool environment you are already extending trust to
the provider of the build-tool.
I was about to provide a windows “tinderbox” so gem developers can get
windows builds of their gems for free, without the need of get windows
+development tools and the pain it is.
There is also CruiseControl as CI tool, that could be used too.
Thank you Gary for your comments,
Regards,