Re: [Mingw-users] mingw g++ support for VC++ objects

[Edward S. P. <es...@pg...>]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 09:24:43AM +0800, Luke Dunstan wrote:
> 
> >From: "J. Grant" <jg-...@jg...>
> >Reply-To: min...@li...
> >To: min...@li...
> >Subject: Re: [Mingw-users] mingw g++ support for VC++ objects
> >Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:49:20 +0000
> >
> >>It does suck because MSFT is a moving target, but then every single third 
> >>party API library that people have come up with for VC++ would be 
> >>instantly available for mingw (ie: 99% of the libraries out there). And 
> >>dlls created by mingw would be linkable with .net apps.
> >
> >Thats difficult, why don't you encourage vendors to supply g++ libs, as 
> >well as the typical MSVC, Borland etc then?  You could even offer to do 
> >the compiling and testing of them.

... and if the source is closed? I understand the want for vendors 
to be open source, but in the short term to medium term - and maybe/probably 
the long term, this isn't going to happen.

And to port to any given compiler, it takes a business case. Which -
given the small market share of mingw on win32 is not going to happen.

For cross-platform products it might be easier to justify the expense
(since it would be smaller) but for the majority of the APIs out there,
forget it.

As for COM, through the CINTERFACE standard, the more I'm thinking about
this, the more it seems like this is the road to purgatory. I've been
reading some COM docs, and they make me have a gag reflex.

However, to be fair, maybe I'm not grasping the 'inner beauty' of COM.
If someone had some fairly decent pointers to tutorials, I'd be willing
to check 'em out and fashion a com tutorial for mingw..

Ed