Slashdot Mirror
Scalable Windows Development Environments?
spirality asks: "I've been developing under *NIX since I started writing software about ten years ago, and my company has been developing its product under *NIX since its inception. Until recently that is. We just completed the first Windows version of our product. Under Unix we used CVS with a custom build environment that we developed in house, and it simply can not be ported to Windows. What are Slashdot users, who must develop under Windows, using for a development environment?"
"Though it does work under Cygwin, (this is how we got our port in place), it's simply not viable, as a simple compile/link cycle can sometimes take over an hour. We've begun to use Visual Studio, but have found that it lacks in many respects, especially when it comes to syncing project files among our developers. Obviously people are developing LOTS of Windows applications, and I can't imagine that everyone has a crippled development environment. What kinds of tools are used for source code revision, and especially what mode is Visual C++ used in? Given our dependence on third party libraries there is no way that we can avoid Visual C++, though use of the Microsoft IDE is not necessary. We have a team of about ten and are going to be adding more, so an environment that scales well is essential."
As a person who has been programming on Unix since 1992 and linux since 1998, and has been in charge of CVS and general development environments at 3 companies across many different platforms, let me say that the environment you describe comes very close to "the horror that is Windows development".
Write real makefiles, and get out of RCS and into CVS. Install GNU make and WinCVS on your windows machines, and do the builds there, invoke the MS compiler from the command line (or using gcc or MinGW). Or do you guys enjoy wasting time coming up with the most convoluted way of doing things ?
On Unix you use a compiler and source code control, and it's great. On Windows you use just a compiler, and you call it crippled.
How about adding source code control, then at least you're comparing like with like. Or remove source code control from the Unix environment and then let's call that crippled.
Let's not just call it crippled because it's Windows please. As you say, lots of people are developing lots of software on Windows and it's a very mature platform for this sort of work, and everything is in place, but you have to get your finger out of your arse and configure it.