Re: g_io_channel_win32_new_fd()

[Tor Lillqvist <tml iki fi>]

> They're more portable than MFC.

Well, yeah, but MFC is hardly a current technology. And C (or even
C++) is really not a programming language I can recommend with a
straight face for new code either. You should be comparing against
Java or C#. Java can be quite portable, and C# too as long as you
don't use stuff not implemented in Mono.

> But forcing programmers to use VC++6

Who is forcing anybody to do anything?

That's like complaining to the local public library "You are forcing
me to learn Russian to be able to read these Dostoyevski novels I
found on your shelves in the original language!"...

Anyway, the main target group of *my* GTK+ stack binaries are people
writing code mainly for Unix (ok, so Linux in particular) that is also
portable to Windows. Typically they use gcc on Unix, and thus using
mingw on Windows is a good fit. Mingw builds against msvcrt.dll.

Supporting MSVC (any version) is for me not a main priority, at least currently.

> Somehow, glib-win32 needs to hide or
> somehow obviate its reliance on the VC++ 6 runtime.

It is a misconception that msvcrt.dll would be "the VC++ 6 runtime".
msvcrt.dll is the system C library and it is present, in updated
versions, on every Windows version. Even in Windows 7 does system code
like notepad.exe or ws2_32.dll link to msvcrt.dll. Not to some of the
compiler-specific msvcr[789]*.dll which is not even shipped with the
OS.

If msvcrt.dll would be "the VC++ 6 runtime", how do you explain that
also 64-bit Windows comes with msvcrt.dll? (And in addition there are
then compiler-specific 64-bit msvcr[789]*.dll.)

It's just the mingw-built GLib *binaries* that "rely" on msvcrt.dll.
Not GLib in general on Windows or whatever you mean with "glib-win32".

The source code does not rely on msvcrt.dll. It builds equally fine
against msvcr[789].dll. (If it by accident doesn't, that is a bug and
will be fixed.) And in Open Source, it's always the source code which
is the actual product or deliverable.

--tml