Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder1.news.weretis.net!news.swapon.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mit.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: The portability sacred cow Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 11:35:39 +0200 Organization: http://www.ieee.org/ Lines: 46 Message-ID: <8738h0o2l0.fsf@gmail.com> References: <20140425111954.344@kylheku.com> <8a8b525c-0d6d-4cc1-80ff-ecb59f52544b@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mit.eternal-september.org; posting-host="4af8175e487d1d8249b5548b81726a30"; logging-data="6229"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19BnDmXf+UXUsqGSMpqQNjxPkd1lXFu7yk=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:5g0nRY9dfyGrCwW3nwYXd5gPwy8= sha1:vXgWoF87qa0g3hUlSTKO+CiGTkg= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:43590 Malcolm McLean writes: > On Friday, April 25, 2014 7:27:53 PM UTC+1, Kaz Kylheku wrote: >> On 2014-04-25, Kenny McCormack wrote: >> >> You can call Windows API's when developing with MinGW. >> >> The C library that is used is Microsoft's; you can make programs that can ship >> as nothing but a single .exe file, and run on people's Windows boxes. >> >> What is lacking is a resource compiler for defining dialogs and strings. >> Or is it? >> >> Googling slightly: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MS_resource_compiler >> > One of the features of programming is that most programming tools, > applications, interfaces etc have a core functionality which is interesting > from a computer science perspective, and easy enough for someone to program > up in their spare time. That then gets attached to some sort of user > interface, to create something which, in a formal sense, offers a lot > of functionality. > > However the soft problems are easily underestimated. If you've got to > download something from the internet, install to a specific directory, > set a path in some sort of configuration file, only to receive a message > that some bit somewhere is misconfigured, then it can easily take all > day to install the tool, and it's not usable in a commercial or consumer > setting (academic programmers and hobbyists can still use it, but even > then, only if particularly committed). > > It's hard to make software really nice to use, integrated with the > environment but not falling over when something about that environment is > not as expected, This is total nonsense. It can be, should be, IS .. easy. A programmer who installs something that's needs an ENV set and cant do it is probably out of his depth anyway. Any consumer app for non techies that requires that needs its creating team overhauled. It sounds to me like you're used to zero testing (user and integration tests) and somehow conflate your poor processes with the rest of SW development. -- "Avoid hyperbole at all costs, its the most destructive argument on the planet" - Mark McIntyre in comp.lang.c