On 3 October 2013 23:19, Colomban Wendling <lists.ban@herbesfolles.org> wrote:

Le 03/10/2013 02:19, Lex Trotman a écrit :

> All Developers,
>
> Its time we deprecated windows support!!

Although I don't use Windows, I don't really see why.

>
> The windows code in Geany is:
>
> - unmaintained and bit-rotting

Nick uses it AFAIK, and he had done things on it, so it's not that true.

Nick seems to be the only one that attempts to maintain it, and as he noted in another thread, he doesn't have much time these days and he doesn't want to be maintainer again. He's done sterling work over many years, lets say thanks, and let the guy have a break :)

> - buggy

Well, I can't say there isn't a problem with the spawning code here --
but that's the "only" thing I know that is truly problematic.

About 10% of the open bugs are labelled windows.

> - holding us at an unreasonably old GTK version

Sorry? I don't think Windows support has anything to do with the GTK
version we support. If anything, it's rather the contrary, providing a
newer version for Windows installers is far easier than forcing users of
old GNU/Linux distros to build a new version.

Well, as I understand it, moving the windows packages to GTK 2.24 is the only thing holding us at 2.16. As there was a deathly hush on the ML thread when volunteers were requested to try it, I guess nobody is willing to support it, even just for that.

> - hard to maintain due to being hacks on top of hacks

Again, spawning code (only?)

Again 10% of open bugs.

> - few of the developers have access to a representative development
> setup (no WinXP on a VM is hardly representative)

I indeed don't, but AFAIK Nick and Matthew does

And I should add, its not reasonable if you are the only one either, the fixes needed to windows will deprive the rest of Geany of any of your effort. Its not as if there are no other things to do :)

> [...]

>
> If this does not result in contributors who support the windows version
> coming forward and actually making a difference in the code and the user
> support then Windows should be dropped in a couple of versions.

It would indeed be nice to have more developers that really user the
Windows version and have time and will to improve and fix it.

And therein lies the problem, the Linux version is not exactly brimming with developers and, as far as I can tell, nobody wants to support the windows specific code.

> I don't have any windows systems, don't use it and can't develop for it,
> but I have always noted when I was aware that some issue would impact
> the windows version, and have tried to help people who have had
> difficulties with Geany on windows where I could.

That was nice, thanks :)

Well, not having time for non-work coding ATM, answering (and asking :) questions is my limit.

Anyway, although I agree the Windows version isn't as good as it should
right now, I don't really see the problem it causes to the rest of
Geany. And if we indeed clean some things up a little like Matthew
suggests, it could even be just fine (Windows dialogs, come on).

Again, the issue is, without anybody to do it, all that happens is that the rest of Geany gets less love.

Lots of people over the years have put forward suggestions, but none of them have even dropped a PR or patch, let alone assisted with maintenance. Its not nice to cut off a platform, but if everybody expects others to do the work, then we may have no choice or the whole project will collapse.

I'm not saying delete anything inside #ifdef OS_WIN32 tomorrow. But also in fairness some warning that platform specific code is not being maintained adequately needs to be given to Windows users, and their help sought, and this is one way I can think of that makes it clear. Other suggestions are welcome :)

Cheers

Lex

Cheers,
Colomban

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