Re: [tdf-discuss] NMake vs MinGW

Thanks for the clarification as this has given me a better understanding in
terms of the build setup used by LO.  My question now becomes why is it so
hard to get a proper build environment setup for buidling LO on windows, as
well as it being easier to break out of all the platforms supported.


On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Christian Lohmaier <
lohmaier+ooofuture@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jonathan, *,
>
> On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Jonathan Aquilina
> <eagles051387@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Rainer what i want to understand is why use an external build tool when
> > there is an equivalent to make built directly into visual studio.
>
> You are completely missing the point here. The default build /does/
> use Visual Studio Compiler, that is the default setup/the only
> officially supported one to begin with.
>
> mingw ist not a make system, but a compiler.
> nmake is not a compiler, but a make-tool.
>
> Replacing one by the other just doesn't work, since they do completely
> different things.
>
> LO uses gnu make as its make-tool since that is available to all
> relevant systems and supports the features that are needed.
>
> And if you're wondering why the build uses the Microsoft compiler instead:
>
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Windows_Build_Dependencies#Why_MSVC.3F
> ######
> Why MSVC?
>
> It is a frequently asked question, usually coming from free software
> purists, why we use proprietary compiler instead of a free one (e.g.
> gcc).
>
> ABI backwards-compatibility for compiled extensions. There is some
> resistance to breaking that - also so far MSVC produces faster,
> smaller binaries.
>
> There are also some features in the code that don't compile with
> MinGW. They use API that MinGW does not provide headers for etc.
>
> In addition to above points also there are also open questions around
> how we would run unit tests in a MinGW cross-compilation environment
> and how well gdb works on Windows; the MSVC C++ debugger is really
> quite good.
> ######
>
> You're comparing apples and oranges. That just doesn't make any sense.
>
> ciao
> Christian



-- 
Jonathan Aquilina

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