Re: Problem to search

[Alan Mead]

Yeah, it's telling that when Harry compiles for Windows, he does so by
cross-compiling on Linux. I did a lot of development on DOS but since I
discovered Linux, almost all my development has been on Linux, which I
also find much easier.

I think someone who was familiar with windows development tools might be
able to make it easier to compile PSPP on Windows, but they would
probably need to pick a (possibly proprietary) compiler and maintain a
set of files (like project files) for that purpose. And I suspect it
would be a modest project of it's own. Installing software properly on
Windows is more complex and Harry had to integrate the nullsoft
installer to get the package files that we install. It's probably never
going to be a simple as configure; make; make install.

Cygwin might be a solution. When I do anything like development on
Windows, I do it in Cygwin. I don't know much about recent Microsoft
efforts to support Linux apps natively, but that might be easy to do
now: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/ubuntu-on-windows#1-overview

Still, installing Cygwin or WSL just to compile PSPP is beyond the
technical skills of most PSPP Windows users.

-Alan


On 8/25/2020 2:35 AM, John Darrington wrote:
> Building PSPP isn't so daunting.  In most cases, it's as simple as
> "./configure; make; make install".  Having said that, the hurdles
> usually arise installing the many dependencies which PSPP requires,
> rather than PSPP itself.
>
> Unfortunately, the dependencies are a lot harder to solve on Windows
> than any other OS (which is one reason I gave up using Windows many
> years ago).  Windows is notoriously inflexible in many other respects
> too.   I suggest that you switch to a GNU/Linux based system and make
> your life a lot easier.
>
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 08:38:28AM +0200, Domingo J Rubira L??pez wrote:
>      
>      I have filed three bug reports as Alan recommended. About compiling the 
> new
>      version myself... What a funny person you are, Alan! As all of you have
>      seen, I am not good at computers. I have to confess that I had to look 
> for
>      what non-ASCII characters are to understand what you wrote. So I laughed
>      when I read about compiling myself. It was funny. I am only a bug 
> searcher
>      and I prefer waiting for people who can whisper to computers like Harry;
>      meanwhile I will ask smart men like all of you, lol.
>      
>

-- 

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.
President, Talent Algorithms Inc.

science + technology = better workers

http://www.alanmead.org

The irony of this ... is that the Internet is
both almost-infinitely expandable, while at the
same time constrained within its own pre-defined
box. And if that makes no sense to you, just
reflect on the existence of Facebook. We have
the vastness of the internet and yet billions
of people decided to spend most of them time
within a horribly designed, fake-news emporium
of a website that sucks every possible piece of
personal information out of you so it can sell it
to others. And they see nothing wrong with that.

-- Kieren McCarthy, commenting on why we are not 
                    all using IPv6