[Geany-Devel] On Deprecation of Platforms

[Lex Trotman]

On 3 October 2013 23:19, Colomban Wendling <lists.ban at 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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