What's the oldest MS VC version Parrot should built with?

jerry gay jerry.gay at gmail.com
Fri Dec 19 21:20:53 UTC 2008


On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 09:06, Geoffrey Broadwell <geoff at broadwell.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 20:10 +0000, Vadim Konovalov wrote:
>> Again, Jan's explanation:
>> http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2006-03/msg00725.html
>>
>> With different CRT you'll get unneeded bloat, and new CRT could not yet be
>> installed on target OS, so in newer VC you need to provide user with
>> instructions how to install CRT for VC9.
>>
>> WinXP+SP3 do have lates VC runtime, while pure WinXP could not!
>
> It's not uncommon for applications to require certain minimum Windows
> Service Packs.  I don't think it's unreasonable for Parrot to do so as
> well, especially since:
>
> 1.  It would allow us to use a current compiler, while still not
> bloating our install.
>
> 2.  Anyone not running a current SP is probably running an insecure
> system.  I consider it a net win for the world to strongly encourage
> users to at least *minimally* secure their systems.
>
> 3.  There may be a few users who cannot use a patched up version of
> Windows for whatever reason, usually because they must support
> production software that cannot handle the upgrade.  Given that Parrot
> 1.0 is explicitly *NOT* for production use, I don't believe there's much
> likelihood of a large intersection between systems running Parrot 1.0
> and systems that cannot run current OS patches.
>
>> the point I've raised is not choosing between GCC(mingv) and VC9, but rather
>> why it could be desireable to not drop VC6 support, provided that there will
>> be VC9 support anyway.
>
> How about this:
>
> *PROVIDED SOMEONE ACTS AS MAINTAINER*, we support VC6 for users to
> manually build with, but it's not the compiler we use for default
> prebuilt Windows binaries.  For these, we can use VC9, and require Vista
> or WinXP SP3. [1]
>
> Is that an acceptable compromise?
>
>
> -'f
>
> [1] Mind you, I'd prefer to build with only open source tools, but it's
> unclear to me that that is a reasonable default on Windows.  If it *is*
> reasonable to make gcc our default compiler on Windows, then we should
> -- all others become "supported for user builds".
>
PDD01 (which, along with the other PDDs, is missing from our website,
*sigh*) explains our target platforms:
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:IXkUtehd2MIJ:www.parrotcode.org/docs/pdd/pdd01_overview.html+parrot+pdd01&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a#Target_Platforms

windows xp is not on that list, mainly because nobody has
*volunteered* to *guarantee* that parrot will continue to work on
windows xp.

additionally:
~ the parrot policy does not require service packs on any operating system.
~ the parrot team will continue to support recent versions of msvc on
windows as long as i'm involved with parrot, and probably longer. msvc
is better on windows than gcc, and many more windows users are
familiar with msvc than with any open source compiler.
~ the parrot team is very happy to accept the contributions of
volunteers who will port parrot to any platform.
~ it is not the mission of the parrot foundation, nor is it possible
for its volunteer contributors, to support every platform that parrot
could possibly run on, for eternity. it's a small but growing
foundation with a young but maturing, unfinished product and a tiny
budget.
~ there are companies, such as mine (rakudo consulting group) that
will port parrot to any platform you desire, and maintain it there,
for a fee. in my opinion, that's the way it should be--not everything
in life is free.

~jerry


More information about the parrot-dev mailing list