[sword-devel] Windows users as "poor cousins"?

[Ben Morgan]

Hi Jonathan,

Visual Studio is the best way to compile on Windows. I used to compile with
mingw + msys, but the environment feels slow and clumsy, and it produces
larger, slower executables. And Visual Studio is free - you can download the
express editions.

Visual Studio seems to me much easier to work with, compiles faster and
produces better executables. Visual Studio also is much better supported
than mingw.

Your argument that you can't fix VC++ is I think irrelevant; it is very
stable, and even if I do have something wrong in some software (VC++ or
openoffice or whatever), I'm very unlikely to dive in and attempt to fix it.
Being able to modify software doesn't greatly help me.


> IMO it's really sad that anyone would choose an open source
> cross-platform language such as Python, on top of an open source
> cross-platform library such as SWORD, and then deliberately restrict the
> resulting application to just one OS.  But it is your project, and so
> entirely your choice.

Python, though cross-platform, on Windows is built with Microsoft tools (as
they are the best for purpose). Likewise, BPBible compiles SWORD with
Microsoft tools, as they are the best. Mozilla/Firefox is likewise compiled
on Windows with Microsoft tools, and mingw is a tier-2 platform for them.

BPBible does work on linux, and I routinely run it on Linux. I've even run
it on a Mac. But neither of these platforms is as well supported (i.e.
binaries distributed) because most users are on windows (also because I
don't know how to do packaging really for linux...)

God Bless,
Ben
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Multitudes, multitudes,
    in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near
    in the valley of decision.

Giôên 3:14 (ESV)
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