Well, the build process is going well. On the mac, I have made a shell script that creates the applications for you. For those of who who have not developed on a mac yet, mac applications are actually disguised folders that hold the application along with other information on running the app. Sure, it looks like just an app if you are looking at it in the finder, but it is really folder. Before, we had to build with X-Code ( the free gcc development kit from Apple Computer ) using project files and such. I really did not like going from the command line and make files to xcode JUST to make the application I could click and run. So now there is a new command in the makefile to build all the apps, or you can build the apps by doing a make in the application name and adding ‘.app.

Now onto windows … again.

    Compiling with pthreads-win32 has tons of gotcha’s. Really read the faq on the website. Some of the things I really need to stress is that if you are using an old version of MingW to develop on windows, please get the latest version. Older versions have ‘weirdness’ when it comes to pthreads. And by weirdness, I mean crashes.

    I have to hand it to the developers for putting pthreads ( POSIX 1003.1-2001 ) on Windows. They had to build it on top of the Win32 event model which is not the best. Windows NT, 2000, and XP models are different from Windows Me and the Windows 9X series. Do I think Microsoft will ever put a stake into this things and release a nice built in POSIX pthreads library that runs on all the above platforms? Not likely. Windows Me and the Windows 9X series are pretty close to dead anyway, so just do the NT kernel.

    Now Microsoft does have a pthreads implementation in Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5 from Interix. That runs on NT based systems, and is basically UNIX running inside of a Windows NT based box. Supposedly they have support in SUA 5.2 that I could use to build against. But I won’t. Feel free to try it yourself, but I am going to stay away from the kool-aid. If you are going to install Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX , which is basically a UNIX box, why not just install Fedora or Ubuntu and call it a day?

Tags: Florida and michigan revote ? not happening. Fedora Ubu

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Development, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.